Wisdom Journal - Spring/Summer 2021

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As 2021 continues to unfold and as we plan our publishing program for the year, I am filled with gratitude that Wisdom Publications is able to bring so many of these important and deep Dharma teachings into the world. Our mission as a nonprofit publisher is to make authentic Buddhist teachings widely available and accessible. In this issue of the Wisdom Journal, we have decided to showcase these texts in longer form to help you dive into the teachings from these books across our publishing program for the year. It is my hope that these gems of Dharma inspire your practice!

I’m delighted to announce that two new volumes in our Library of Tibetan Classics series have been published this spring: Illuminating the Intent: An Exposition of Candrakīrti’s Entering the Middle Way by Tsongkhapa and translated by Thupten Jinpa as well as Four Tibetan Lineages: Core Teachings of Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyü, and Bodong, translated by Sarah Harding.

Scholars and practitioners who read multiple languages will be excited to hear that Thupten Jinpa’s translation of Illuminating the Intent is available in Wisdom’s online reading room with new language functionality, allowing you to easily move between the English and the Tibetan (and also some Sanskrit). Plus and All-Access Wisdom Experience members can choose to show the Tibetan, Sanskrit, and English translations side-by-side, in-line, or with pop-ups to customize your reading experience based on your preference. You can start reading in multiple languages at wisdomexperience.org/read-illuminating/.

Readers interested in mahāmudrā will be excited to hear that we recently published Mahāmudrā: A Practical Guide, Wisdom’s first publication from H. E. the Twelfth Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche. At the heart of this book are Rinpoche’s practical instructions on how to settle and work directly with the mind to discover the nature of the mind. These instructions are given as commentary

Also recently published was Courageous Compassion, the latest volume in the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Ven. Thubten Chodron. If you’ve been enjoying this series so far, then you will find the exploration of bodhisattvas’ activities across multiple Buddhist traditions in this latest volume particularly fascinating.

Poetry lovers will discover John Brehm’s The Dharma of Poetry to be a rich and delightful read. Check it out on pages 12 to 19. Readers loved Brehm’s previous bestselling anthology, The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy, and in this latest book, Brehm demonstrates the practice of mindfully entering a poem with an alertness, curiosity, and open-hearted responsiveness very much like the attention we cultivate in meditation. You can also listen to the episode of the Wisdom Podcast in which I interviewed John Brehm at wisdomexperience.org/ podcasts/.

As we continue to navigate this challenging and unpredictable year, I hope that our Wisdom Journal, books, online courses, and other resources provide some comfort and inspiration to help deepen your practice and knowledge.

We are grateful for all your continued support. May you remain safe and well.

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Dear Wisdom Friends,

to a short text written by Bokar Rinpoche, which is itself a concise summary of the ninth Gyalwa Karmapa Wangchuk Dorjé’s Ocean of Definitive Meaning. We’ve selected to share an excerpt on the general presentation of śamatha with you on pages 20 to 25.

W I S D O M

F R O M T H E P U B L I S H E R

A S C O M PA S S I O N A L O N E I S A C C E P T E D T O B E THE SEED OF THE PERFECT HARVEST OF BUDDHAHOOD, T H E W AT E R T H AT N O U R I S H E S I T, A N D T H E F R U I T T H AT I S L O N G A S O U R C E O F E N J O Y M E N T, I W I L L P R A I S E C O M PA S S I O N AT T H E S TA R T O F A L L . 1 . 2

F I R S T, W I T H T H E T H O U G H T “ I A M , ” T H E Y C L I N G T O A S E L F ; T H E N , W I T H T H E T H O U G H T “ M I N E , ” T H E Y B E C O M E AT TA C H E D T O T H I N G S ; L I K E B U C K E T S O N A W AT E R W H E E L , T H E Y T U R N WITHOUT CONTROL; I B O W T O T H E C O M PA S S I O N T H AT C A R E S F O R S U C H SUFFERING BEINGS. 1.3

BEINGS ARE LIKE REFLECTIONS OF THE MOON IN R I P P L I N G W AT E R ; SEEING THEM AS FLEETING AND AS DEVOID OF I N T R I N S I C N AT U R E , T H E B O D H I S AT T VA’ S M I N D FA L L S U N D E R C O M PA S S I O N ’ S S W AY, Y E A R N I N G T O S E T F R E E E V E R Y T R A N S M I G R AT I N G BEING. 1.4 — C A N D R A K Ī RT I

Daniel Aitken CEO/Publisher Wisdom Publications

I L L U M I N AT I N G THE INTENT AN EXPOSITION OF CANDRAKIRTI'S ENTERING T H E M I D D L E WAY T S O N G K H A PA T R A N S L AT E D B Y T H U P T E N J I N PA

Contents

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Ś A M AT H A I N THE MAHAMUDRA TRADITION His Eminence the Twelfth Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche

4 2 WISDOM D H A R M A C H AT S

Bhikkhu Bodhi

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52 I N T R O D U C I N G FOUR T I B E TA N PR AC T I C E TRADITIONS

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Ven. Thubten Chodron

4 4 THE SIMILE OF A LUMP OF FOAM

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Sarah Harding

GETTING EMPTINESS RIGHT

64 AN INTRODUCTION TO TIBETAN CALLIGR APHY

Thupten Jinpa

Tashi Mannox

12 T H E S ACR E D PAU S E John Brehm 35 THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF HIS HOLINESS THE FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA Narrated by the Dalai Lama Text and Illustrations by Rima Fujita

HOW TO LIVE W I T H C O M PA S S I O N

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68 THE BUDDHA ON M E N TA L S T I L L N E S S AND INSIGHT Translated by the Buddhavacana Translation Group for 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha (http://84000.co) 76 F E AT U R E D A N D NEW RELEASES A selection of books featured in this issue and new releases.

38 READING DHARMA TEXTS A Wisdom Podcast Interview with Thupten Jinpa W I S D O M E X P E R I E N C E . O R G

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Getting Emptiness Right AN EXCERPT FROM I L L U M I N AT I N G T H E I N T E N T

BY T H U P T EN J I N PA

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ccording to his biographies, gaining full insight into Madhyamaka’s profound view of emptiness took time, effort, and extensive meditative cultivation on Tsongkhapa’s part. He had studied the great Indian treatises on Madhyamaka with Rendawa, the then greatest known authority on the subject in Tibet. He had read, critically reflected on, and meditated on the meaning of these important texts. Thanks to existing records, we know that he had also engaged in a prolonged dialogue on the view of emptiness with Rendawa. In addition, according to the biographies, Tsongkhapa had “access” to the meditation deity Mañjuśrī through the medium of Lama Umapa at first and later Tokden Jampal Gyatso. However, even after his three-year intensive retreat in the Wölkha Valley, 1393–95, gaining the Madhyamaka view was one area where he felt he needed further effort. When he did finally experience the breakthrough in 1397, at the age of forty, Tsongkhapa had developed a unique understanding of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka philosophy as read through Candrakīrti. In the immediate aftermath, Tsongkhapa wrote a hymn to the Buddha, praising him for his revelation of the truth of dependent origination. In 1401, Tsongkhapa completed his Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, which contained, in the final insight section, an extensive presentation on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness.

This lengthy work would be followed by four other major works on Madhyamaka: the hermeneutic text Essence of True Eloquence in 1407, his extensive commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way in 1408, the insight section in his Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment in 1415, and finally our present volume, Illuminating the Intent, in 1418. Together, these five are known as the five great Madhyamaka works of Jé Tsongkhapa.

To understand Tsongkhapa’s Madhyamaka, it is important to appreciate the concerns and questions underlying his deep inquiry into this philosophy. Recognizing its crucial importance as the only way to liberation, “with no second alternative door,” as Nāgārjuna’s disciple Āryadeva puts it, Tsongkhapa was nonetheless deeply concerned about the nihilistic implications of the view of emptiness if not properly understood. After all, Nāgārjuna himself had warned against this, comparing the erroneous understanding of emptiness to mishandling a venomous snake. In particular, Tsongkhapa was concerned about certain Tibetan readings of Candrakīrti that advocated such views as the following: a Mādhyamika is concerned only with refuting other’s views but presents no positions of his own; the facts of conventional truths are perceived only by the deluded mind; the existence of things can be accepted purely for another’s sake and also from the other’s perspective; there can be no knowledge of the ultimate

truth except in a metaphorical sense; and the buddha’s gnosis does not perceive the world of conventional truth (with some in fact reading Candrakīrti to suggest that gnosis itself ceases to exist at the point of buddhahood).

Tsongkhapa was concerned about the nihilistic implications of these views with respect to both ethics and soteriology. In harboring these concerns, Tsongkhapa seemed to sympathize with the Kadam master Chapa Chökyi Sengé’s (1106–69) critiques of Candrakīrti, but he did not like the former’s proposed solution. There was, however, another alternative in Tibet with respect to Madhyamaka philosophy. By this I am referring to the so-called extrinsic emptiness (gzhan stong) view of Jonang masters like Dölpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361).

Tsongkhapa was never attracted to this extrinsic emptiness view, which involved accepting the idea of emptiness itself as being absolute with intrinsic existence. His critique of this view dates from his early writings. What Tsongkhapa strove for, in his deep inquiry into Madhyamaka philosophy, was an integrated view, wherein Madhyamaka’s emptiness ontology serves as a robust basis for ethics and soteriology and is consonant as well with a coherent system of logic and epistemology based on common-sense intuitions of epistemic practice.

Below are some key elements of Tsongkhapa’s quest to develop a more integrated understanding of Madhyamaka philosophy: 1. Identifying what is to be negated in the context of philosophical analysis of and meditation on emptiness 2. Distinguishing the domains of discourse of conven­ tional analysis from those of ultimate analysis 3. Clarifying the meaning of the key modifier ultimate in the statement that things do not exist on the ultimate level 4. Drawing a critical conceptual distinction between existence and intrinsic existence, the latter rejected even on the conventional level 5. Defining emptiness in terms of the categorical negation of intrinsic existence: in other words, saying that emptiness must be defined, in technical Buddhist language, in terms of nonimplicative negation 6. Interpreting emptiness in terms of dependent origination (that is, emptiness = dependent origination) 7. Asserting that though emptiness lies beyond thought, insofar as its total knowledge is concerned, its truth is accessible to human cognition: in other words, saying there can be a legitimate knowledge of emptiness through inferential cognition 8. Respecting the apparent world of conventional truth and not denigrating it through taking it to be mere illusion W I S D O M E X P E R I E N C E . O R G

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with no causal efficacy; saying that, in fact, a criteria of validity can be brought to bear within the domain of conventional truth so that a robust differentiation can be drawn between the truth of water as water and the falsity of mirage as water 9. Differentiating the Svātantrika and Prāsaṅgika standpoints on the basis of not just a methodological difference on whether to employ formal inference or consequence-demonstrating reasoning, but also a substantive philosophical difference over whether intrinsic existence should be accepted or rejected on the conventional level 10. Clearly differentiating three distinct uses of the crucial Sanskrit term svalakṣaṇa (rang mtshan): (1) the defining characteristics of a phenomenon, (2) the unique particulars found in Dignāga and Dharmakīrti’s epistemology, and (3) intrinsic characteristics, which Tsongkhapa understands to be equivalent to the ­notion of intrinsic nature (svabhāva or svarūpa), a central object of critique for Candrakīrti’s Madhyamaka philosophy 11. Developing a unique Prāsaṅgika standpoint on key questions of ontology, epistemology, and soteriology in the wake of rejecting intrinsic existence even at the conventional level Let me expand a little on numbers 9 and 10, which are interrelated. For Tsongkhapa, Candrakīrti’s critique of Bhāviveka’s use of formal inference in the context of establishing Nāgārjuna’s emptiness is not simply a dispute over a methodological choice. That is to say, it is not just about how best to establish the truth about emptiness. This methodological difference belies a substantive philosophical difference centered on whether a Mādhyamika could subscribe to any notion of objective intrinsic existence, even on the conventional level, that would entail a degree of realism. For Tsongkhapa, when Bhāviveka (and his Svātantrika colleagues) accept Dignāga and Dharmakīrti’s definition of perception as the absence of conceptuality and as having a nonerroneous relation to its objects, which are unique particulars, this indicates admission of some kind of residual realism. There are at least three important contexts that Tsongkhapa cites as evidence that Bhāviveka holds such a view. One is Bhāviveka’s assumption that, in formulating a formal inference establishing emptiness by the Mādhyamika, three elements of the syllogism—subject, logical reason, and example—can be established commonly by both parties. Candrakīrti rejects such commonly established factors, while Bhāviveka accepts them; for him, there are such things as subjects, logical reasons, and examples as perceived by ordinary perceptions. The second relates to Bhāviveka’s charge of nihilism against the Cittamātra claim, within their “three natures” theory, that

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the imputed nature lacks existence by virtue of intrinsic characteristics while the other two—dependent nature and perfected nature—exist by virtue of their intrinsic characteristics. The third context relates to Bhāviveka’s distinction between veridical conventional truths, such as water, faces, and real elephants, versus nonveridical or distorted conventional truths, such as mirages, mirror reflections, and magical conjurations. For Candrakīrti, no such objective distinction can be made within conventional truth, since the entire world of conventional truth is defined from the deluded perspective of the unenlightened mind. Differentiation within conventional truth can be made only in a limited sense, purely from the everydayworld perspective, and not in terms of objectively real intrinsic existence. What Candrakīrti is rejecting here, according to Tsongkhapa, is not the reality of conventional truth itself; rather, he is refuting any attempt to ground its existence and validity in objective facts that possess intrinsic existence.

In a memorable line in his commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness, in responding to a question raised by an opponent as to why, being equally devoid of intrinsic arising, we can observe dependent origination in relation to ignorance but not in relation to the son of a barren woman, Candrakīrti says, “You should ask this question to the world alone, not to me.” In the same text, in rejecting Cittamātra’s intrinsically real consciousness but admitting external reality, Candrakīrti states, “I accept the conventions of the world, but as to the status of its contents and cognitions about them, it is the world that knows about them, not me. On your part too, you [Cittamātra] will not be able to negate this fact of the world associated with us [Madhyamaka].” In brief, Candrakīrti seems to be saying that he accepts the reality of conventional truth as the world defines it, including the truths of such things as the laws of cause and effect, noncontradiction, and so on.

It is not the task of a Mādhyamika like him, or for that matter any philosopher, to define the criteria for the reality of conventional truth. For him, what philosophers such as Cittamātras, Sautrāntikas, and Bhāviveka are asking with respect to conventional truth—grounding it in some objective facts affirmed by incontrovertible knowledge— is impossible. When it comes to conventional truth, philosophers need to defer to the world, not formulate their own metaphysical views. Tsongkhapa strives to flesh out what such “deferring to the world” might entail, and he proposes three criteria for existence on the conventional level: (1) a given fact is known to, or acknowledged within, a conventional cognition, (2) it is not invalidated by another valid conventional knowledge, and (3) it is also not invalidated by analysis probing the ultimate nature of reality. “Conventional cognition” (tha snyad pa’ i shes

pa), as Tsongkhapa understands it, refers to what Candrakīrti calls “unexamined cognition” (ma dpyad pa’ i shes pa) and “worldly convention” (’jig rten pa’i grags pa).

In summarizing his understanding of what is meant by these crucial terms associated with conventional truth, Tsongkhapa writes: Conventional cognitions are cognitions that operate without analysis, such as those that engage their objects only ­within the context of how a given phenomenon appears to it, without analyzing in terms such as, “Is this how the thing actually exists, or does it just appear this way to my mind?” These are called unanalyzed perspectives, but it is not the case that they do not engage in any form of inquiry. Given that they operate within the context of how things appear and are known to a worldly or conventional knowledge, they also constitute what is meant by worldly convention. And this kind of cognition occurs in everyone, whether or not their minds have been exposed to philosophical systems. Thus, no matter whose mindstream they occur in, they are called worldly conventions or unanalyzed perspectives.

For Tsongkhapa, “deferring to the world” when it comes to defining conventional truth does not mean looking for the commonest denominator and taking the word of “cowherds” and their like. Nor does it entail a kind of defeatism, throwing one’s arms in the air saying, “It is impossible to say.” Furthermore, if Candrakīrti is to be taken seriously when he is presenting the various stages and attributes of the bodhisattva grounds with such diligence, and when he is presenting what he understands to be the heart of wisdom that leads to true freedom, then to leave the issue of validity and truth of statements pertaining to these presentations simply to the perspectives of cowherds (no disrespect to cowherds) seems at best naive! Something like this is what Tsongkhapa has in mind when he says that the unexamined perspective of worldly convention exists not just in common people but also in reflective philosophers. In brief, he is saying that what is called worldly convention exists in all of us and relates to our shared intuitions concerning everyday epistemic practice.

In critiquing Svātantrika views on conventional truth, Tsongkhapa writes: “Those who are at such odds with the manner in which the world understands the referents of everyday conventions, even if they say, ‘Things exist on the level of worldly conventions,’ they do not actually hold

such a view. Theirs is merely an utterance.” Tsongkhapa’s insistence that even Candrakīrti’s Madhyamaka ontology must be reconcilable with fundamental elements of pramāṇa (logic and epistemology)—rules of inference, principles of logic (such as the laws of noncontradiction and the excluded middle), facts about human cognition, and the shared experience of emotions—is premised on the understanding that their acceptance is indispensable for any coherent account of the world of conventional truth.

Noted above as element 10 of Tsongkhapa’s approach to Madhyamaka, a key difference between Candrakīrti and other Mādhyamikas like Bhāviveka is the crucial term svalakṣaṇa—literally, “self-characteristic”—a term with multiple senses in Buddhist sources. Tsongkhapa identifies three distinct uses of the term: (1) as defining characteristics, such as heat being the defining characteristic of fire, as found in the Abhidharma texts; (2) as unique particulars in the context of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti’s epistemology, where they serve as objects of direct perception; unique particulars are distinguished from universal properties in being causally efficacious; and finally, (3) as intrinsic characteristic, a kind of fixed, defining essence by virtue of which a given thing is thought to acquire its existence and identity.

In this third sense, intrinsic characteristic becomes equivalent to intrinsic nature (svabhāva), which is well known as an important object of critique for Nāgārjuna’s

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Madhyamaka. Tsongkhapa suggests that one of the key differences between Candrakīrti and Bhāviveka is the former’s rejection of intrinsic characteristic and the latter’s acceptance of it on the conventional level.

For Madhyamaka, according to Candrakīrti as read

by Tsongkhapa, there can be existence only in the conventional sense and only on the conventional level; there is no ultimate existence, no irreducible, ultimate “primitives,” no existence defined by some intrinsic nature or essence. And what constitutes conventional existence is nothing but dependent originations, which are referred to also as dependent designations (rten nas btags pa). Even emptiness, which is the ultimate truth, is a conventional existent, not an ultimate existent. Though emptiness is the ultimate truth, paradoxically, it has no ultimate existence— hence the emptiness of emptiness.

Some present-day scholars seem to suggest that this third sense of the term, intrinsic characteristic, is Tsongkhapa’s innovation and is not found in Candrakīrti’s own writings. They contend that when Candrakīrti is critiquing svalakṣaṇa, he has in mind how the term is defined in the Dignāga and Dharmakīrtian sense—namely, as unique particulars—and the sense in which Tsongkhapa is reading “is not present in Candrakīrti.” It is perhaps too early to make such unequivocal judgment. No doubt Dignāga’s unique particulars are an important object of critique

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for Candrakīrti when he is refuting svalakṣaṇa. There are, however, also numerous passages in Candrakīrti’s writings where it would be problematic, to say the least, to read the usage of the term in this unique particulars sense. We find phrases like “the svalakṣaṇa of conditioned things” or “some Buddhist schools accept svalakṣaṇa for conditioned things,” where the term appears as if referring to an attribute or characteristic of things, and “if things endure in the three times through their svalakṣaṇa,” and “in that very Ten Grounds Sutra, consciousness is stated to be a result of ignorance and volition, not existing by virtue of svalakṣaṇa,” where the term is used with the instrumental case, suggesting clearly that what is referred to is akin to a defining essence by virtue of which a given thing might be thought to exist and derive a unique identity. To read these usages in terms of unique particulars would stretch the limits of both readability and philosophical coherence.

In any case, the supposition that Tsongkhapa was the first to distinguish the two Madhyamaka subschools by their acceptance or rejection of intrinsic characteristics on the conventional level is unfounded. We have textual evidence to show that Maja Jangchup Tsöndrü, an important student of both Chapa and Patsab, also maintained such a view.

Tsongkhapa’s Madhyamaka, because of what some perceive as its innovative and “controversial” interpretations, generated extensive debate in fifteenth-century Tibet.

Some, such as Taktsang Lotsāwa, took issue with Tsongkhapa’s insistence on the criteria of validity for the facts of conventional truth, accusing him of adhering to a form of realism. Famously, Taktsang leveled against Tsongkhapa “eighteen heavy loads of contradiction.”

Others critiqued Tsongkhapa’s exclusively via negativa approach to defining emptiness in terms of nonimplicative negation—its categorical negation of intrinsic existence.

They accuse Tsongkhapa of having fallen into the extreme of nihilism. For some, Tsongkhapa’s acceptance of the possibility for knowledge of ultimate truth on the ordinary person’s stage through inference is tantamount to violating Candrakīrti’s important point about the ultimate truth being inaccessible to conventional cognitions. At the same time, some Tibetan authors found Tsongkhapa’s reading of Candrakīrti to be too literal when the former rejects, even on the conventional level, reflexive awareness and foundation consciousness—two key concepts of Yogācāra.

Tsongkhapa’s insistence on a substantive philosophical difference between the two subschools of Madhyamaka was a particular target of his critics. That Candrakīrti himself admits there being substantive philosophical difference between him and other Madhyamaka commentators of Nāgārjuna is evidenced from the following quote from the autocommentary: “Some Mādhyamikas speak of how what the Sautrāntikas assert to be ultimate realities are accepted

by Madhyamaka as conventional existents. He who says this fails to understand the true intent of the Treatise on the Middle Way.” Members of Tsongkhapa’s own Geluk school responded to these critiques, which, in turn, generated further critical discussions, with the result that Madhyamaka discourse remained a fertile philosophical enterprise in the Tibetan language for a long time.

W H AT I S AT S TA K E I N G E T T I N G M A D H Y A M A K A’ S EMPTINESS RIGHT?

One may wonder why deep thinkers like Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, and Tsongkhapa, like so many Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophers, made such a fuss about emptiness. For these great Buddhist minds, Madhyamaka philosophy is not a speculative metaphysics competing for acceptance as a worldview. Nor is it a descriptive philosophy attempting to establish a clear description of reality so that humans might build their knowledge upon an incontrovertible foundation. Madhyamaka philosophy is, in the best sense of the word, therapeutic, so that the insights it reveals can cure us of deeply ingrained habits of grasping. So, unsurprisingly, the Madhyamaka philosophical project involves to a large extent a form of deconstruction—revealing, through careful analysis, every concept, every existent, to be ultimately contingent,

composite, and relational. This is quite contrary to our naive view of the world, wherein, deeply conditioned by our experience and language and thought structured around things and properties reflected in our language of nouns and adjectives, we instinctively assume that things possess objective existence definable through some kind of essence that establishes their unique existence and identity. It is this deep innate assumption of the intrinsic existence of things, according to Madhyamaka philosophy, that forms the basis for our grasping and subsequent attachment to the people

“There is, according to Madhyamaka thought, simply no other way to liberation. So . . . a lot is at stake in getting emptiness right.” and things in our lives. And this deep innate assumption is the fundamental ignorance (avidyā) that is the target for removal by anyone who seeks the true freedom of nirvana. The absence of such intrinsic existence, described as emptiness, represents the ultimate truth and therefore constitutes the content of true wisdom that can lead to freedom. There is, according to Madhyamaka thought, simply no other way to liberation. So, for the Mādhyamika, a lot is at stake in getting emptiness right.

For Tsongkhapa, what is required is an active realization of emptiness, one based initially on a reasoned knowledge obtained through careful inquiry. Simply suspending our grasping or remaining nondiscursive without any judgment—as in the single-pointed state of tranquil abiding (śamatha)—is not adequate. He takes this to be, in fact, the central message of Kamalaśīla’s Stages of Meditation, echoed in the following crucial passage from the King of Meditations Sutra, an important source scripture for Nāgārjuna: Though one pursues meditative concentration, if one does not destroy the notion of selfhood, afflictions will resurface, and one will be perturbed.

This is analogous to Udraka’s meditative concentration.

But when one probes phenomena and self with discriminative wisdom and meditates on what had been analyzed in such manner,

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this then becomes the cause for attaining nirvana.

No other cause can lead to such a state of peace.

Tsongkhapa’s insistence on cultivating the knowledge or insight into emptiness is based on the recognition that our habitual grasping at intrinsic existence is so deeply ingrained that no amount of suspension of discursive thought can undo it. In fact, according to Tsongkhapa, for most of us who have not internalized the knowledge of emptiness, it remains impossible to differentiate, perceptually or cognitively, between the mere existence of things and their assumed intrinsic existence. Furthermore Tsongkhapa tells us that our habitual grasping, fundamental ignorance, is not a case of simple unknowing; it is a case of active “misknowing.” This means that only a sustained deconstruction of its object—assumed intrinsic existence—through reasoned analysis combined with meditative internalization of that insight could begin the process of such undoing. More plainly, it requires a prolonged “unlearning” to remove layers and layers of grasping that we take for granted in our normal everyday perception and experience. As we deepen our insight into emptiness, we begin to view our own existence and the world in a manner that resembles our engagement with an illusion, where we are conscious of what we perceive yet we are simultaneously cognizant of its unreality. In this way, our instinct for grasping and attachment comes to be thinned to the point where what Śāntideva says toward the end of his lengthy “Wisdom” chapter will ring true for us: When all things are empty in this way, what can be obtained, what can be lost?

Who can be honored by whom?

Who can be insulted by whom?

From what can there be happiness or misery?

What is there to be liked or loathed?

And when examined in reality, who is craving and what is craved?

For Tsongkhapa the knowledge of emptiness, like knowledge of any other important truths of existence such as impermanence, first arises at the level of hearsay, meaning it is derived from studying or hearing about it.

Gradually, as one’s understanding of emptiness is deepened through critical reflection, which involves constantly relating the truth of emptiness to one’s personal everyday experience, genuine ascertainment of the truth will at some point arise accompanied by a powerful conviction. This ascertainment (nges pa; Skt. niścaya) will be tinged also with a sense of wonder at how emptiness and dependent origination arise as one and the same truth, and how emptiness constitutes both the cause and effect. Both Candrakīrti and Tsongkhapa aim to inspire this sense of wonder in us by quoting specifically, at the end of their

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commentaries on many of the chapters of Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way, some of the most poetic and memorable verses from the Mahayana sutras that convey what it feels like to experience the world in an illusionlike manner. In any case, at this stage, in Tsongkhapa’s language, inferential cognition of emptiness has occurred for the person. This then is the second stage in the progression of one’s understanding of emptiness, and a key indication of this would be progressive ebbing in the force of the afflictions, especially attachment and anger.

Now for this knowledge of emptiness to become fully incorporated into one’s very being, it must be grounded in the attainment of tranquil abiding focused on emptiness.

That is, one combines the tranquil abiding of single-pointed concentration with the cultivation of insight (vipaśyanā) into emptiness so that one’s realization of emptiness becomes what is called the union of tranquil abiding and insight. As one cultivates this union, one eventually reaches a point when, suddenly, one’s insight into emptiness acquires the quality of direct experience. Such direct realization of

emptiness, characterized by an absence of conceptuality and of subject-object duality, involves a total fusion of the mind with emptiness, “like water poured into water.” One who has gained such a state is known as an ārya, a noble being.

Even in advanced highest yoga tantra, for Tsongkhapa, emptiness remains the same as that defined by Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti in terms of the absence of intrinsic existence. There is no further, deeper truth to be revealed in Vajrayāna. Where tantra’s profundity comes is in the domain of the knowing subject, not the object emptiness.

Unlike in the non-Vajrayāna Madhyamaka sources, tantra emphasizes techniques for generating the insight into emptiness at the level of subtle consciousness, which results in bliss when duality and discursivity are progressively dissolved. Insofar as emptiness itself is concerned, however, tantra has nothing more to add.

So for those who take Tsongkhapa seriously, a lot is at stake—not just philosophy but also ethics and soteriology—in getting one’s understanding of emptiness according to Madhyamaka philosophy right. And taking

the time and making the effort to deeply engage with our volume, Illuminating the Intent, is an effective way to getting emptiness right according to Tsongkhapa.

I L L U M I N AT I N G THE INTENT AN EXPOSITION OF CANDRAKIRTI'S ENTERING T H E M I D D L E WAY B Y T S O N G K H A PA T R A N S L AT E D B Y T H U P T E N J I N PA PA G E S 1 5 – 2 5

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The Sacred Pause AN EXCERPT FROM THE DHARMA OF POETRY

BY JOHN BREHM

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hen we step back and examine the workings of the mind—not only the contents of thought but the process of thinking itself—what do we find? A relentless, self-generating stream of words, images, memories, stories; repetitive loops of worries, plans, regrets, desires. We also come to see that we are not controlling our thoughts, or even in any intentional way actually thinking them. They’re just happening—and happening according to deeply grooved patterns. In The Wise Heart, Jack Kornfield writes: Just as the salivary glands secrete saliva, the mind secretes thoughts. The thoughts think themselves.

This thought production is not bad, it’s simply what minds do. A cartoon I once saw depicts a car on a long western desert highway. A roadside sign warns, “Your own tedious thoughts next 200 miles.”

Meditation allows us both to observe our habits of mind and to experience moments of spaciousness—breaks in the incessant flow of thought, rest stops along that 200mile stretch of highway. Poetry presents another powerful way to disrupt the habitual momentum of the mind, its automatic reactions and obsessive self-concerns.

To fully enter a poem, we must first stop and step away from the more immediate demands of life and engage in an imaginative activity that has no obvious practical value. More important, we must shift out of our everyday consciousness—the speedy mind wrapped in its selfcentered stories and projections. Poets help us experience this stopping. Indeed, a poet may be defined as one who

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stops, one who is inclined by temperament and training to step out of the ongoing flow of experience and look at it, and to help us do the same.

Robert Frost’s most famous poem is a perfect example of the beauty of stopping.

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though.

He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it’s queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

It’s important to realize that the entire poem is predicated on the poet’s decision to stop. No stopping, no poem. And that is the difference between the poet and the horse, who may be seen as representative of the force of habit, the unconscious instinct to do what it has always done. “My little horse must think it queer / To stop without a farmhouse near . . . He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake.” Likewise, for most of us, caught up in getting from one place to another, there is no compelling reason to step outside the flow of time and simply notice—enter into, recognize our oneness with—what’s happening in the present moment: in this case, the woods filling up with snow, the sound of “easy wind and downy flake” inducing in the poet, and perhaps in us, a kind of reverent trance.

It’s also worth pausing to consider the furtive nature of this moment. The traveler notes, with relief, perhaps, that the owner of the woods will not see him while he stops to watch the snow fall. There is a privacy and intimacy in his unobserved, secretive looking. Because if he were observed, it would be with puzzlement or suspicion. Like the horse, the owner of the woods would also think it odd for someone to stop and gaze at falling snow. Our cultural pragmatism cannot easily comprehend or justify the impulse to look intently at something for no “good reason” (with the exception of officially sanctioned beauty like sunsets, oceans, mountain vistas, etc.). Snow

falling in lonely woods does not fall within the acceptable categories of things that warrant our full attention. Of course, we as readers do observe the poet. We look at him as he looks at the falling snow. We see the snow through his eyes and we also see his seeing, see him in the act of seeing. The poem thus gives us an example of how we might comport ourselves in a similar setting or situation. The poet’s behavior both in the poem and in the writing of the poem makes an implicit argument, a lovely one, in favor of stopping and looking.

But why? What does this stopping by woods on “the darkest evening of the year,” the winter solstice, give rise to? A moment of extraordinary depth and stillness, and a reminder that there is a world of beauty that exists independently of human will and purpose. Frost says: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” and we feel the attraction the poet also felt, the desire to go into those woods, to slip the world of duties and destinations, escape the constriction of egoic self-concern, and merge with that depth and stillness. The poet does not give in, but his repeating of the line “And miles to go before I sleep” suggests the difficulty of resisting that lure. (Even the snowflakes are “downy”— falling down but also evoking feathery down comforters).

We feel the pull of those woods even after the poem has ended, how wonderful it would be to drop everything and immerse ourselves in such quiet amplitude, in snow that blurs and blends all things in its whiteness—a physical enactment of the seamless nature of reality, which in our habitual way of seeing appears as a series of separate things.

In a sense the poem itself becomes the woods, an imaginative space where we can experience a deep and healing selfforgetfulness. The question then is, how long can we stop and stay with the poem, the hushed world it places us in.

Can we feel the sense of wonder and reverence the poet himself has felt? Can we carry that feeling with us into the demands and distractions of daily life? Can we allow ourselves simply to stop and look?

One of Japan’s most beloved poets, Ryokan (1758–1831), lived the simple life of a hermit monk, which is itself a kind of sacred pause, a stepping out of the conventional flow of life. Known for his love of children and workmen, Ryokan embodied the “Great Fool” archetype, an eccentric, playfully subversive truth-teller unconcerned with what others thought of him. His poem “First Days of Spring” shows how stopping, allowing oneself to be stopped, can give rise to a moment of joyful communion.

First days of Spring—the sky is bright blue, the sun huge and warm.

Everything’s turning green.

Carrying my monk’s bowl, I walk to the village to beg for my daily meal.

The children spot me at the temple gate

and happily crowd around, dragging on my arms till I stop.

I put my bowl on a white rock, hang my bag on a branch.

First we braid grasses and play tug-of-war, then we take turns singing and keeping a kick-ball in the air: I kick the ball and they sing, they kick and I sing.

Time is forgotten, the hours fly.

People passing by point at me and laugh: “Why are you acting like such a fool?”

I nod my head and don’t answer.

I could say something, but why?

Do you want to know what’s in my heart?

From the beginning of time: just this! just this!

—translated from the Japanese

by Stephen Mitchell Here, it is the village children who stop the monk-poet on his round of alms-gathering, but he is willing to be stopped, as no doubt the children are aware. (I suspect his initial resistance is a little play-acting to make his capitulation more sweet). And unlike Frost’s, Ryokan’s stopping is public rather than private. He is not only observed but ridiculed.

The people passing by, those who will not stop, laugh at him: “Why are you acting like such a fool?” Like the horse in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” who thinks it “queer to stop without a farmhouse near,” these passersby can’t fathom why one would waste time playing with children. But Ryokan isn’t wasting time, he’s stepping outside it. “I kick the ball and they sing, they kick and I sing. / Time is forgotten, the hours fly.” Rather than answering back to those who taunt him, Ryokan speaks to us with disarming openness: “Do you want to know what’s in my heart? / From the beginning of time: just this! just this!” Just this present moment, just what life is giving us and asking of us right now, things just as they are—this is where the richness of life can be found.

And how wonderful that instead of arguing with the passersby, he writes a poem, for us. That, too, is a kind of stopping. Because what do we typically do when someone insults or disrespects us? We react, more often than not, in anger and defensiveness. The ego feels attacked, and the ancient structures in the brain that evolved to ensure our survival flood the body with chemicals designed to make us take action, to fight or flee. So we answer back, either out loud, or in our heads, where the argument may be replayed for hours, days, weeks, years. But there is another possibility, and that is to pause, to create a gap, a space between the stimulus of the insult and the response of anger. Ajahn Buddhadasa calls such pauses “temporary nirvana.” We

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are released from the defilements of ignorance, greed, and hatred, and can rest in spacious awareness. Pausing is key to not getting caught in reaction. It allows for the possibility of a different, more generous response—in Ryokan’s case, a poem which even after nearly three centuries still speaks to us with refreshing simplicity and directness. But we needn’t write a poem to feel the benefits of such pausing. Simply not doing what our conditioning impels us to do is healing. And just to read the poem mindfully—with patience, curiosity, and full imaginative engagement—is to have stopped for a moment ourselves and entered the timeless experience the poem describes.

James Wright was strongly influenced by ancient Chinese and Japanese poets, and his poem “A Blessing” participates in the tradition of sudden insight which is a crucial feature of Zen poetry. “A Blessing” reveals the transcendent possibilities that arise when we pause and give ourselves over to a moment of boundary-dissolving connection.

A BLESSING Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.

Like Frost and Ryokan, Wright is on his way from one place to another, and like them he feels compelled to stop, to interrupt that forward momentum. When he and his friend

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step out of the car, they are greeted first by the twilight that “bounds softly forth on the grass,” an image which evokes the luminous nature of the moment and the liminal space the travelers have entered: the transition between day and night where mystical experience most often occurs. The three long o sounds in “bounds softly forth” create a sense of buoyancy, of slowing down and opening. The horses also welcome them: “they can hardly contain their happiness / That we have come.” Because the travelers have stopped and opened themselves in this way, the world responds through the loving presence of the horses. It is as if their stopping has called them forth. Then the poet and his friend step over the barbed wire fence, a transgression—they are literally trespassing—that initiates the movement toward the poem’s ecstatic conclusion. That initial stepping over leads to the poem’s final stepping out of the body. It’s easy to treat the line—“We step over the barbed wire into the pasture”—as purely informational, but it enacts, literally and figuratively, the non-separation that the poem is ultimately about, the dissolution of the boundary between human and nonhuman, self and other, body and spirit. The poet is shedding the limitations of the egoic, self-centered way of being in the world.

Crossing that boundary and entering the field allows Wright to do more than look at the horses; he makes contact with one, caressing its “long ear / that is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.” Because Wright has stopped, because he has made such loving contact with the horses, he has been brought to a moment of transformative insight: “Suddenly I realize / that if I stepped out of my body I would break / into blossom.” What an astonishing thing to say! I’ve read this poem dozens of times over many years, and that final assertion, and the authority with which Wright makes it, still shocks me, the strangeness and absolute rightness of it. But what would it mean to step out of the body and break into blossom? It’s interesting that Wright does not tell us—only that he knows that if he did step out of his body, he would break into blossom. It’s the knowing that he realizes and enacts in the poem. He knows that he knows.

Or as the Thai Forest master Ajahn Chah might say, he has become “the one who knows.” He sees that being in a body that appears separate from all things is an illusion. Our capacity for boundary-dissolving experiences, like the one Wright describes, proves it. The breaking into blossom itself cannot be described, only approached through metaphor.

It is a post-linguistic feeling, a state quite beyond the reach of words. And so Wright only points to it, extending it as a possibility for us. Such transcendence, the poem implies, is always available, that step is always there, waiting to be taken, but only if we stop our ongoing momentum and let the feeling of wonder, reverence, and loving awareness arise in us. We might also say that in the act of writing Wright has

stepped out of his body and broken into the blossom of the poem—that he has dissolved the boundary between human and poem—which is itself an invitation for us to do the same, to enter the poem as Wright enters the pasture, to be there with him in that shimmering moment by the roadside on the way to Rochester, Minnesota.

This is the beauty and the magic of poems: they help us see and feel the beauty and magic of the world when we allow ourselves to hit pause on our habitual thoughts and behaviors. And when we enter poems fully, when we experience them rather than think about what they mean, they can release us from our sense of separateness and from the kind of obsessive self-concern that leads inevitably to suffering. In that way, great poems are needed now more than ever, as we grow more and more removed from natural processes—and from actual physical contact with the world—and as we identify more and more strongly with our thoughts, the relentless momentum and reactivity of the mind.

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A great poem can stop that momentum for a moment and help us see that any moment, fully experienced, is a gateway out of the realm of time and change into timeless awareness.

M E D I TAT I O N : WALKING/STOPPING Walking-and-stopping meditation is a practice designed to help us interrupt the habitual momentum of the mind and shift from being lost in thought—worrying, planning, regretting, wanting, etc.—to paying close attention to what’s right in front of us.

Choose a place to walk, preferably in nature, though this meditation can also be done in a town or city, someplace where you feel safe enough so that you don’t have to be overly vigilant and where you won’t feel too self-conscious about stopping and looking at things. Before you begin to walk, simply stand and feel how your feet make contact with the ground. Shift your weight from side to side, one foot to

conceptual overlay. Don’t ascribe meaning to what you see and don’t tell a story about it: just look. Bring a quality of warmth and friendliness to your looking. Feel as though what you’re looking at is aware of your gaze and appreciates the attention, as if it might be saying, “Ah, how wonderful to be noticed! No one ever really sees me the way you are seeing me.” Notice the physical features of the object but see also if you can sense any energetic quality emanating from it.

Notice the quality of the relationship you’re having with it, how it feels to hold it in your awareness. Stay with the object as long as you’re able to keep noticing and appreciating it.

When you’re ready to resume your walk, bow to your new friend (inwardly or outwardly) and thank it for being there.

Begin walking again and repeat this process when the next thing calls out to you. Do this as long as it holds your interest. Notice the effect this practice has on you. Perhaps a deeper sense of connection with the “ordinary” things of the world will arise, or a sense of calm affection, or the spaciousness, appreciation, and gratitude that comes from freely giving your attention to things typically overlooked.

You may also notice the difference between walking and looking and stopping and looking, and between those moments of bright attention and our habitual way of being lost in thoughts.

You might want to practice stopping and looking throughout the day, even if only for a few moments. It’s remarkable what we can see when we stop and turn the light of awareness on the things we take for granted.

As the ancient Japanese poet Old Shoju says: “Want meaningless Zen? / Just look—at anything!” the other, and feel how your whole skeletal structure adjusts to this movement. Bring your attention to the flow of your breathing and notice whatever body sensations are present.

Begin to walk at a slow but not funereal pace, about half as fast as you usually walk. Meditation teacher Tara Brach says, “If I walk half as fast, I notice twice as much.” Simply walk and look. Let your eye be drawn where it will, but hold an intention to notice the things you typically overlook, things that have a neutral feeling tone, that don’t call forth any strong feeling, positive or negative: the intricacies of the bark and roots of trees, the qualities of dirt and rocks, shadows cast by bushes and ferns, spider webs lit by sunlight; or, if you’re in a city or town, the lettering on street signs, bolts on fire hydrants, twigs on the sidewalk, etc.

As you walk, feel when something draws your attention, when something seems to call to you or feels especially vivid. When that happens, let yourself go toward that thing and stop. Give it your full attention. Simply notice what’s there in as much detail as possible without adding any

"First days of spring," Ryokan, from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry edited by Stephen Mitchell. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen Mitchell. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

“A Blessing” from The Branch Will Not Break © 1963 by James Wright.

Published by Wesleyan University Press. Reprinted with permission.

THE DHARMA OF POETRY HOW POEMS CAN DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PR AC TICE AN D OPEN YO U TO JOY

BY JOHN BREHM PA G E S 11 – 2 7

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Ś A M AT H A IN THE MAHAMUDRA TRADITION AN EXCERPT FROM MAHĀMUDRĀ C O M M E N TA R Y B Y H I S E M I N E N C E T H E T W E L F T H Z U R M A N G GHARWANG RINPOCHE ON BOK AR RINPOCHE’S A C O N C I S E C O M M E N TA R Y O N T H E O C E A N O F D E F I N I T I V E MEANING

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e begin with meditative exercises that develop concentration with the aim of training in the meditative practice of śamatha. The text first introduces a general, succinct presentation of śamatha before then going on to give a more extensive explanation.

But don’t let the briefness of the presentation mislead you: these instructions might be condensed, but they are very profound. These concise and pithy instructions go straight to the heart of the practice. This is often the traditional way that mahāmudrā practice is imparted from teacher to student.

The general introduction to śamatha starts with advice for what to do with your body when you engage in this practice and then gives instructions for what to do with your mind.

CRUCIAL POINTS OF THE BODY The crucial points of the body refer to the seven-point posture of Vairocana, according to which one should sit on a comfortable cushion as follows: 1. feet in vajra posture,

2. hands placed evenly, 3. shoulders spread like vultures’ wings, 4. neck drawn in like an iron hook, 5. spine straight like an arrow, 6. eyes focused on the space four finger-widths in front of the tip of the nose, 7. lips and teeth resting naturally, and tongue touching the upper palate.

Our posture can have a powerful effect on our mental state. The great Indian mahāsiddhas explained that there is a relationship between our posture and the quality of our meditation. They explained that there is a subtle network of channels (nāḍis) that run throughout our bodies and that subtle wind-like energy (prāṇa) courses through these channels. The wind energy that runs through these different channels is closely associated with different mental states.

When we hold our bodies in different postures, this affects the alignment of the subtle channels, which then affects the movement of the subtle wind energies. In turn, the subtle energy winds have an effect on our mental states. That is because our winds are intimately connected with our

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thoughts, which are often described with the analogy of a horse and a rider.

The Vajrayāna Buddhist texts explain all this in great detail; they talk about seventy-two thousand channels and five main wind energies. They explain how these wind energies relate to both our destructive emotions and the different aspects of the awakened experience. As we age, the channels of our subtle body slowly deteriorate—much like our physical body, but there are different techniques for maintaining the wisdom breath. For the present purposes, what we need to understand is that when we sit in a proper meditation posture, like the one described in the verse above, we are able to place all these channels in their proper alignment so that the wind energy inside these channels can flow smoothly and without obstruction. When this happens, the elements in the body become harmonious, you feel healthier and happier, and you also become more graceful. More importantly, the smoothing out of the flow of the subtle wind energies causes discursive thoughts to naturally subside and tranquil absorption to naturally arise.

Each part of the posture has an important influence on the subtle body and subtle energies. I will explain the basics of the sitting posture, and you can receive more detailed instructions directly from your guru on how these postures relate to the channels, winds, and drops.

First, we need to find a comfortable meditation seat or cushion. Nowadays, many people have a meditation cushion that is slightly higher at the back. This is very suitable since it keeps your spine straight. When we meditate, if possible, we should take the seated position known as the seven-point posture of Vairocana. I will explain each point below.

1. The first instruction is to sit in a cross-legged position called the vajra posture, with the right leg resting on the left leg. This is the posture in which many yogis are depicted when sitting in meditation. This may be difficult for people who are not flexible, since each foot rests on the thigh of the opposite leg. If this is not possible, then you can sit in half-vajra posture, with just one foot raised up on the opposite thigh and the other resting on the floor. Alternatively, you can sit cross-legged with the left leg inside, closer to your body, and the right leg outside. This modified sitting posture is known as the bodhisattva posture.

2. The next instruction is to place your hands in a meditative mudrā with the right hand resting on top of the left palm, with both palms facing upward. If you are female, according to some yogis it is better to put the left hand on top of the right palm. The tips of the thumbs touch each other gently. Your hands should be placed four finger

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widths below your navel; this is a special point in the subtle body in which the winds flow.

3. Your shoulders should be evenly balanced, and your elbows should not be bent. This is what is meant when the text says, “shoulders spread like vultures’ wings.” It is sometimes awkward not to bend your elbows, and so the main point here is that your shoulders are level.

4. Your chin should be slightly tucked in and tilted down in order to straighten the back of your neck.

But don’t drop it too much, as this will round the neck. The tip of your nose and your navel should be in the same line. This is what is meant when the text says, “neck drawn in like an iron hook.”

5. The next instruction is to keep your spinal column straight like an arrow. This is an important instruction since it helps with concentration and makes you feel lighter. If we slouch, then we will get drowsy.

6. Your gaze should be directed toward the space in front of you just beyond the tip of your nose. The text mentions focusing on the space four finger-widths in front of the tip of the nose. Your eyes should be still and unmoving. The shifting of your eyes stirs the mind and brings about discursive thoughts.

7. You should rest your lips and teeth naturally, and for developing śamatha it is helpful to gently touch your tongue to your upper palate. For this type of meditation, it is good to have a little space between your upper and lower teeth and to have your lips gently closed.

It is important to be careful not to hurt yourself trying to sit in this posture. If you feel pain after five minutes of sitting, then just relax again. Don’t overstrain yourself. Just relax, take a walk around, have a cup of tea, or do a few prostrations. Then come back to continue sitting.

The important point here is that if our posture is not correct, this affects our subtle body, which in turn affects our mind and therefore our meditation. For example, if we are leaning to the right in our meditation posture, then it is said that our mind will become attracted to sense objects, while if we are leaning to the left, then the mind will develop more discursive thoughts. If we are leaning forward, then it is said that the mind will become agitated, and if we are leaning back, then the mind will become more distracted.

A yogin will pay careful attention not only to their posture but also to other conditions, such as their diet. If we are serious about meditation, then we should monitor our diet.

We should learn which foods make our minds dull and which foods make our minds agitated. As we learn about

the impact that different foods have on our mental state, we should adjust our diets accordingly. Eating just the right amount of food is also an important consideration. As most people have experienced, eating too much makes you sleepy.

Perhaps the most important condition to be attentive to is the place where you meditate. Particularly for beginners, it is important to find a quiet place for meditation. If the place is noisy, then you may not be able to concentrate at all. But once you have mastered tranquility meditation, it does not matter where you meditate, because your concentration will be so good that even loud noises and a busy environment will not distract you.

CRUCIAL POINTS OF THE MIND The crucial points of the mind are, as stated according to [Tilopa’s six words of advice], “Don’t recall, don’t imagine, don’t think, don’t meditate, don’t examine, rest naturally.”

Rest in uncontrived ease, without grasping to luminosity or emptiness, single-pointedly, loosely relaxed yet without distraction, on the essence of this momentary ordinary mind,

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which is free from refuting and affirming, rejecting and adopting, and hoping and doubting, and free of adhering to true existence that reifies objects.

This verse is very profound. In our Kagyü tradition, Tilopa’s six words of advice are used to point out the essence of mind. They are also pith instructions for how to meditate.

The first instruction is “don’t recall,” which means that you should not think of the past. Thinking of the past is the cause of dualistic thinking, and from that arises attachment and aversion. Many people get trapped in the past. I met a woman in Singapore who told me that she’d been angry at someone for thirty years! I said, “Forget it. You’ve been suffering for thirty years in a prison of your own making.”

Dwelling on the past is fruitless, it is like fishing from an empty riverbed.

The second instruction is “don’t imagine.” This means that you should not spend your meditation time thinking about the future. When you think too much about the future, then you lose touch with the present. It is said that thinking about the future is like trying to paint the face of an unborn child.

The third instruction is “don’t think.” This means don’t even take the present moment as your object of meditation.

This might be a little confusing if you previously thought that the point of meditating is to be in the present moment.

That is not exactly the point of meditation. This is why it is important to have an experienced teacher guiding your meditation practice. We should also be careful not to grasp even the present moment, which is like trying to write on water. Neither should we exaggerate or denigrate whatever is occurring at the present. Do not fabricate or alter what you see, but leave things just as they are. Do not try to add or reduce, make better or worse. To do so is said to be like letting a stranger into your house.

understand conceptually as “emptiness.” This, however, is not genuine emptiness. Genuine emptiness is beyond words, thoughts, and expressions, much like how the actual taste of chocolate cannot be expressed by words and concepts but must be experienced directly. This kind of conceptual meditation is a form of fabrication, and it is not so meaningful. Instead of investigating, you should stabilize the mind and let it be. Drop analytical effort and remain as naturally as possible.

The sixth instruction is “rest naturally.” You cannot strive to change your mind to improve your mental state or affirm or deny any aspect of your experience. Don’t try to adopt what you think ought to be practiced or reject what you think ought not be practiced. Don’t get caught up in hopes or doubts, like hoping for good results or special meditative experiences in your practice, or else doubting yourself and your practice. Don’t grasp at the true existence of your mind or any object of your awareness. You recognize the essence of mind by simply looking through. See directly. When a thought arises, ask yourself, “What color is this thought?

What shape is this thought?” The thought will simply dissolve under analysis. Then rest in that state, allowing the thoughts to arise, abide, and cease. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking about luminosity or emptiness. Just rest on the nature of mind directly.

The crucial points concerning the mind consist in following these instructions. In sum, allow the mind to be relaxed and simply look at the mind itself, without refuting or affirming, rejecting or adopting, hoping or doubting, and without grasping to things as real objects by clinging to their true existence. Rest in this state single-pointedly, without distractions, and without even grasping to luminosity or emptiness.

The fourth instruction is “don’t meditate.” Again, this instruction might seem very strange on the face of it. What is meant here is that we do not want to meditate in a way that gets in the way of the practice. For example, we do not want to introduce an incorrect or partial understanding of emptiness into our meditation.

The fifth instruction is “don’t examine.” The point here is not to arrive at a destination through effortful rational analysis. As Śāntideva says, the ultimate truth is not the domain of the intellect. An object of analysis does not lie beyond the ordinary mind. Even the highest meaning that you can arrive at through analysis is not beyond thoughts but is still within the domain of language and concepts.

For example, when you engage in analytical meditation, you employ various kinds of logical reasonings to inquire into the nature of reality. You may then arrive at what you

MAHĀMUDRĀ A PR ACTICAL GUIDE

BY HIS EMINENCE THE T WELF TH ZURMANG GHARWANG RINPOCHE PA G E S 4 7 – 5 3

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How to Live with Compassion: The Bodhisattva Perfections AN EXCERPT FROM COUR AGEOUS COMPASSION

BY HIS HOLINESS THE DAL AI L AMA AND VEN. THUBTEN CHODRON

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ll of us appreciate others’ kindness and compassion.

Even before we came out of our mother’s womb, we have been the recipients of others’ kindness.

Although being on the receiving end of compassion mollifies our anxiety and suffering, being compassionate toward others brings even more joy and feelings of wellbeing. This is what the eighth-century Indian sage Śāntideva meant when he said (BCA 8:129–30): Whatever joy there is in this world all comes from desiring others to be happy, and whatever suffering there is in this world all comes from desiring myself to be happy.

What need is there to say much more?

The childish work for their own benefit, the buddhas work for the benefit of others.

Just look at the difference between them!

We need to learn methods to release our self-centeredness and cultivate genuine love and compassion for others.

This does not entail feeling guilty when we are happy or sacrificing our own well-being, but simply recognizing that our self-centeredness is the cause of our suffering and cherishing others is the cause of the happiness of both self and others. In Praise of Great Compassion explains the two methods for doing so: the seven cause-and-effect instructions and equalizing and exchanging self and others.

Now we’ll look at the activities that bodhisattvas engage in with compassion and wisdom to benefit the world.

Image credit: Gen Heywood

INTRODUCTION TO THE BODHISAT T VA PERFEC TIONS We may not yet be bodhisattvas, but we can certainly engage in the same activities they do. In the process, we can continually expand and boost the intensity of our love and compassion.

Bodhisattvas train in bodhicitta for eons, so do not think that having one intense feeling of bodhicitta or reciting the words of aspiring bodhicitta is all there is to it. In Engaging in the Bodhisattvas’ Deeds, the first two chapters lead us in cultivating bodhicitta, and the third chapter contains the method for taking the bodhisattva vow. The other seven chapters describe the practices of bodhisattvas, training in the six perfections. Although these bear the names of familiar activities—generosity, ethical conduct, and so forth—now they are called “perfections” because they are done with the motivation of bodhicitta that aims at buddhahood, the state of complete and perfect wisdom and compassion.

As you progress through the bodhisattva paths and grounds, you will deepen and expand your bodhicitta continuously, as indicated in the twenty-two types of bodhicitta mentioned in the Ornament of Clear Realizations. With joy make effort to understand bodhicitta and the bodhisattva path, and endeavor to transform your mind into these. Avoid conceit and cutting

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corners; in spiritual practice there is no way to ignore important points and still gain realizations. Cultivate fortitude, courage, and the determination to be willing to fulfill the two collections of merit and wisdom over many years, lifetimes, and eons. The result of buddhahood will be more than you can conceive of at this moment.

THE TWO COLLECTIONS OF MERIT AND WISDOM Bodhicitta is a primary mind conjoined with two aspirations. The first is to work for the well-being of all sentient beings, the second is to attain full awakening in order to do so most effectively. Once you have generated bodhicitta and are determined to attain buddhahood, you’ll want to accumulate all the appropriate causes and conditions that will bring it about. These are subsumed in the collection of merit (puṇyasaṃbhāra) and the collection of wisdom ( jñānasaṃbhāra). The collection of merit is the method or skillful means aspect of the bodhisattva path that concerns conventional truths such as other living beings; the collection of wisdom is the wisdom aspect of the bodhisattva path that focuses on the ultimate truth, emptiness. When completed, the two collections lead to the form body and truth body of a buddha. In Sixty Stanzas (Yuktiṣaṣṭikā) Nāgārjuna summarizes these two principal causes: Through this virtue, may all beings complete the collections of merit and wisdom.

May they attain the two sublime buddha bodies resulting from merit and wisdom.

The collection of merit consists of virtuous actions motivated by bodhicitta. The collection of merit includes mental states, mental factors, and karmic seeds related to these virtuous actions. It deals with conventional truths, such as sentient beings, gifts, precepts, and so forth. To fulfill it, bodhisattvas practice the perfections of generosity, ethical conduct, and fortitude, as well as all other virtuous actions such as those done with love and compassion, prostrating, making offerings, and meditating on the defects of saṃsāra.

The collection of wisdom is a Mahāyāna pristine knower that realizes emptiness. It consists of learning, contemplating, and meditating on the ultimate nature of persons and phenomena that is supported by bodhicitta, and includes both inferential reliable cognizers of emptiness that are free from the two extremes of absolutism and nihilism and āryas’ meditative equipoise on emptiness.

The collection of wisdom is not necessarily a union of serenity and insight, but being a Mahāyāna exalted knower, it must be conjoined with actual bodhicitta and bear the result of buddhahood.

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The collection of merit is primarily responsible for bringing about a buddha’s form bodies (rūpakāya), and the collection of wisdom is primarily responsible for bringing about a buddha’s truth bodies (dharmakāya). The word “primarily” is significant because each collection alone cannot bring about either of the buddha bodies. Both collections are necessary to attain both the form bodies and the truth bodies. (Here “body” means a corpus of qualities, not a physical body.) Bodhisattvas fulfill their own purpose by gaining the buddhas’ truth bodies and omniscient minds.

They fulfill others’ purpose by manifesting in buddhas’ countless form bodies through which they benefit, teach, and guide sentient beings.

With bodhicitta as their motivation, bodhisattvas delight in creating the cause for buddhahood by practicing the perfections. Practices and activities that comprise the collections of merit and wisdom become perfections because they are conjoined with actual bodhicitta, which differentiates them from the practices of merit and wisdom cultivated by śrāvakas and solitary realizers. Although śrāvakas and solitary realizers collect merit and wisdom, they are not the fully qualified collections of merit and wisdom and are thus considered secondary collections.

Because solitary realizers’ progress in merit and wisdom is superior to that of śrāvakas, some solitary realizers are able to become arhats without depending on hearing a master’s teaching during their last lifetime in saṃsāra.

Likewise, bodhisattva-aspirants who have not yet generated actual bodhicitta and entered the Mahāyāna path of accumulation create merit and enhance their wisdom, but their practices are called “similitudes” of the two collections and are not fully qualified collections. However, people who aspire to enter the bodhisattva path plant the seeds to be able to do the actual collections later.

Our virtuous actions accompanied by a strong wish for a good rebirth act as a cause for the places, bodies, and possessions associated with fortunate rebirths. Those accompanied by the determination to be free from cyclic existence are similitudes of the collections and lead to liberation. Only when our virtuous actions are accompanied by bodhicitta do they constitute the actual collections. Practitioners of the Perfection Vehicle build up the actual collections over three countless great eons on the bodhisattva path. The first eon of collecting merit and wisdom is done on the path of accumulation and the path of preparation; the second eon is fulfilled on the first seven of the ten bodhisattva grounds that span the path of seeing and part of the path of meditation; the third eon is done on the last three of the ten bodhisattva grounds called the “three pure bodhisattva grounds”—the eighth, ninth, and tenth. Bodhisattvas who follow the Vajrayāna fulfill the two collections more quickly due to the special practice

of deity yoga that combines method and wisdom into one consciousness.

The method side entails cultivating an aspiring attitude— that is, we enhance our intentions to give, to not harm others, to remain calm in the face of suffering, and so on.

With the practice of wisdom, we learn and contemplate the teachings on emptiness, bringing conviction and ascertainment that all persons and phenomena lack inherent existence. This wisdom complements and completes the practices on the method side of the path.

Similarly, our virtuous actions of the method aspect of the path enhance wisdom by purifying the mind and enriching it with merit, which increases the power of wisdom. Method practices help the understanding of emptiness to arise when it hasn’t occurred, and when it has, merit enables wisdom to increase, deepen, and become a more powerful antidote to the afflictive and cognitive obscurations. Ultimately, however, it is wisdom that determines progress on the path because advancing from one bodhisattva ground to the next occurs during meditative equipoise on emptiness.

THE SIX PERFECTIONS Cultivating contrived bodhicitta through effort is virtuous and auspicious; it paves the way to generate uncontrived bodhicitta, which entails engaging in the bodhisattvas’ deeds. These deeds can be subsumed in the six perfections—generosity (dāna, dāna), ethical conduct (śīla, sīla), fortitude (kṣānti, khanti), joyous effort (vīrya, viriya), concentration (dhyāna, jhāna), and wisdom (prajñā, paññā). The sixth perfection, wisdom, can be

Image credit: Olivier Adam | Photography further expanded into four, making ten perfections—the first six, plus skillful means (upāya), unshakable resolve (praṇidhāna, panidhāna), power (bala), and pristine wisdom ( jñāna, ñāṇa). To ripen others’ minds, we train in the four ways of gathering disciples—generosity, teaching the Dharma according to the capacity of the disciples, encouraging them to practice, and embodying the Dharma in our life. These four can be included in the six perfections, so the six are said to be the main bodhisattva practices to ripen both our own mind and the minds of others.

You may wonder: From the beginning, the lamrim teachings encourage us to be generous and ethical, to have fortitude and practice with joyous effort, and to develop meditative stability and wisdom. Why, then, are these

T W O A S P E C T S , T W O C O L L E C T I O N S , T W O T R U T H S , P E R F E C T I O N S , A N D R E S U L T S

ASPECT OF THE PAT H

COLLECTION

TRUTH (BASIS)

PERFECTIONS ( PAT H )

R E S U LT

Method

Merit

Conventional

Generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort

Form bodies of a buddha

Ultimate

Meditative stability, wisdom, joyous effort

Truth bodies (nature truth body and wisdom truth body)

Wisdom

Wisdom

Note: There are various ways of categorizing the six perfections by way of method and wisdom. In another way, the first five perfections are included in method.

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six practices explained only now? Also, practitioners of all three vehicles cultivate these qualities. Why are they explained now as unique Mahāyāna practices?

Let’s use generosity as an example. It is practiced not only in all Buddhist traditions but also in all religions. People who are not interested in any religion but value kindness and compassion also practice generosity. A difference exists, however, between the mere practice of generosity and the perfection of generosity. The perfection of generosity is not simply an absence of miserliness when giving or a casual wish to share things. Nor is it being generous with the motivation to be rich in future lives. Rather, it is giving done with the aspiration to become a buddha in order to benefit all beings most effectively.

In addition to being motivated by bodhicitta, the perfection of generosity is sealed by the wisdom of emptiness. That is, when giving, we reflect on the ultimate nature of the giver, the gift, the recipient, and the action of giving. All of them are empty of inherent existence but exist dependent on one another. Through this reflection, any attachment or misconceptions that could arise from generosity are purified. Based on bodhicitta and assisted by the wisdom of emptiness, the perfection of generosity encompasses both the method and wisdom sides of the path and is enriched by them.

The term perfection—pāramitā in Sanskrit and pāramī in Pāli—has the meaning of going beyond the end and reaching perfection or fulfillment. The Tibetan term pha rol tu phyin pa means to go beyond to the other shore.

These practices take us beyond saṃsāra to the freedom of full awakening where both obscurations have been eliminated and all good qualities have been developed limitlessly. “Go beyond” connotes the goal—full awakening, or the Mahāyāna path of no-more-learning— as well as the method for arriving at that goal—the six perfections done by those on the learning paths.

Motivated by bodhicitta and refined with meditation on emptiness, these practices take us beyond both saṃsāra and the pacification of saṃsāra that is an arhat’s nirvāṇa. For example, bodhisattvas who conjoin their actions of giving with unpolluted wisdom see the giver, the object given, the recipient, and the action of giving as empty of inherent existence. Because their wisdom is supramundane, the generous actions conjoined with it lead them beyond saṃsāra. Ārya bodhisattvas, who have achieved an extraordinary level of training in the six perfections, are objects of veneration and respect, for they both perceive ultimate truth directly and seek to benefit all beings.

Generosity and other perfections that are not conjoined with such wisdom are considered mundane because the

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agent, object, and action are seen as truly existent. To integrate the wisdoms of emptiness and dependent arising into your practice of generosity, reflect that you as the giver (agent), the gift that is given (object), the recipient, and the action of giving do not exist from their own side; they exist dependent on one another. A person does not become a giver unless there is a gift, recipient, and action of giving.

Flowers do not become a gift unless there is a person giving them and one receiving them. Seeing all the elements of generosity as appearing but empty makes our generosity extremely powerful, transforming it into the supramundane practice of the perfection of generosity.

Similarly, when purifying nonvirtue during your practice of ethical conduct, contemplate that prostrations and mantra recitation, for example, do not have inherent power to purify destructive karma. Their ability to do so arises dependent on the strength of your regret, your motivation, the depth of your concentration, and faith in the Three Jewels. Both prostrations and the seeds of destructive karma they destroy are dependent arisings; they exist nominally, by being merely imputed by term and concept.

How can purification occur if both the seeds of destructive actions and the purification practices lack inherent nature and exist like illusions? It is analogous to soldiers in a hologram destroying an arsenal in a hologram. The scene and its figures appear, but none of them exists in the way they appear. If seeds of destructive karmas had their own intrinsic nature, independent of all other things, nothing could affect them and they would be unchangeable. But because they do not exist under their own power, they can be altered and removed by purification practices that alter the factors upon which they depend. This contemplation differentiates the perfection of generosity and so forth from the same actions done by others. The presence of the bodhicitta motivation differentiates the perfection of generosity from the giving done by śrāvakas and solitary realizers.

Each of the perfections is a state of mind, not a set of external behaviors. When certain mental qualities are cultivated, they undoubtedly affect a person’s behavior.

However, external behavior may or may not be indicative of particular mental qualities. For example, a person may outwardly appear generous while her internal motivation is to manipulate the recipient. Likewise, we shouldn’t think that bodhisattvas always give extravagantly. A practitioner may have deep bodhicitta and a strong aspiration to give but, due to lack of resources, only give a small amount.

Practitioners of the six perfections are extremely humble.

They hide their realizations and do not seek fame or recognition.

Image credit: Andrey Kartiev

REFLECTION 1. Activities such as generosity, ethical conduct, and so forth are valued by all religions and by people who have no religion as well. What makes them perfections?

2. In addition, what makes them become supramundane practices of the perfections?

3. Examine the dependent nature of each perfection. For example, someone can’t be a giver without there being a gift and the action of giving; the action of fortitude can’t exist without a person who practices it and a person who is problematic or harmful.

4. Contemplate how engaging in the practice of the perfections with the awareness of emptiness entails seeing the agent who does the action, the action itself, and the object acted upon as empty of inherent existence but existing dependently.

T H E B A S I S , N AT U R E , N E C E S S I T Y, A N D F U N C T I O N O F THE SIX PERFECTIONS Maitreya’s Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras (Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra) describes the six perfections in detail. The following explanation is taken predominantly from that text.

THE BASIS: WHO ENGAGES IN THE PERFECTIONS?

Those who are a suitable basis for these practices have awakened their Mahāyāna disposition—that is, they have great compassion, deep appreciation, and fortitude for the Mahāyāna Dharma. They rely on a qualified Mahāyāna spiritual mentor and receive extensive teachings on the Mahāyāna texts that teach the six perfections. In that way, they learn what the bodhisattva practices are and how to do them correctly.

These practitioners are not satisfied with intellectual knowledge: they reflect and meditate on these teachings to collect both merit and wisdom and they engage in the practice of the perfections at every opportunity. The Mahāyāna disposition is awakened before a practitioner generates bodhicitta. When this disposition is nourished

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Image credit: Nandajoti Bhikkhu / PhotoDharma.net and developed, it will lead a practitioner to generate uncontrived bodhicitta and enter the bodhisattva path.

N AT U R E : W H AT CO N S T I T U T E S EACH PRACTICE?

In the Precious Garland, Nāgārjuna speaks of the six perfections and their corresponding results. He adds a seventh factor, compassion, because it underlies the motivation to engage in the six perfections (RA 435–37).

•

Generosity is physical, verbal, and mental actions based on a kind thought and the willingness to give.

In short, the good qualities that a bodhisattva should develop are generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort, meditative stability, wisdom, compassion, and so on.

•

Ethical conduct is restraining from nonvirtue, such as the seven nonvirtues of body and speech and the three nonvirtues of mind that motivate them, as well as other negativities.

Giving is to give away one’s wealth; ethical conduct is to endeavor to help others; fortitude is the abandonment of anger; joyous effort is enthusiasm for virtue.

•

Fortitude is the ability to remain calm and undisturbed in the face of harm from others, physical or mental suffering, and difficulties in developing certitude about the Dharma.

•

Joyous effort is delight in virtues such as accomplishing the purposes of self and others by creating the causes to attain the truth bodies and form bodies of a buddha.

Meditative stability is unafflicted one-pointedness; wisdom is ascertainment of the meaning of the truths; compassion is a state of mind that savors only loving-kindness for all sentient beings.

•

Meditative stability is the ability to remain fixed on a constructive focal object without distraction.

•

Wisdom is the ability to distinguish conventional and ultimate truths as well as to discern what to practice and what to abandon on the path.

Knowing what constitutes each perfection gives us the ability to practice it more carefully.

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REFLECTION Read the above verses again while contemplating their meaning.

1. How can you generate these various practices and apply

them in your life?

2. What emotions or attitudes make you hesitate to engage in these practices even though you hold them in high regard?

3. How can you remove these mental impediments so that you can joyfully enrich your life and the lives of others through engaging in these practices?

THE NECESSITY AND FUNCTION OF THE PERFECTIONS

The six perfections are necessary (1) to accomplish the welfare of other sentient beings, (2) to fulfill the aims of ourselves and others, and (3) to receive a precious human life in future rebirths so that we can continue to practice.

These are explained below.

Accomplishing the Welfare of Other Sentient Beings

Our practice of each perfection functions to benefit sentient beings: •

By giving generously, we alleviate poverty and provide others with the basic necessities of life and other practical items as well as with things they enjoy.

•

By living ethically, we refrain from harming them, thus easing their fear and pain.

•

By being patient with others’ inconsiderate or harmful behavior, we avoid causing them either physical pain or the mental pain of guilt, remorse, and humiliation.

•

With joyous effort, we continue to help others without laziness, resentment, or fatigue.

•

With meditative stability, we gain the superknowl­ edges, such as clairvoyance (the divine eye), and use them to benefit sentient beings.

•

With wisdom, we are able to teach others so that they can actualize the wisdoms understanding conven­tional truths, ultimate truths, and how to benefit others.

Through this we eliminate their doubts and lead them to awakening.

Fulfilling Our Own Aims

The last three perfections—joyous effort, meditative stability, and wisdom—are cultivated primarily to fulfill our own aims—that is, to spur us on the path to buddhahood. Wisdom realizing the ultimate truth directly eliminates our ignorance, afflictions, and polluted karma so that our mind can be transformed into a buddha’s

omniscient mind. To develop this wisdom that is a union of serenity and insight, we need deep meditative stability that makes the mind pliant and able to meditate on a virtuous object for as long as desired. To develop meditative stability, joyous effort is important to overcome laziness and resistance to Dharma practice.

Fulfilling the Aims of Others

The first three perfections primarily help to fulfill others’ aims. These center around ethical conduct. If we are attached to our possessions, body, and friends and relatives, we will harm others to procure and protect them. By cultivating generosity, our attachment will decrease and we will not harm others to get what we want. If our anger is strong, it will move us to cause others pain and misery.

By cultivating fortitude, we will abandon harming others.

Not only will they not feel pain from our harm but they will also not create more destructive karma by retaliating.

Furthermore, they could be inspired by our fortitude and become more interested in learning how to subdue their own anger.

The first three perfections benefit others in another way as well. Through our being generous, they receive what they need and desire. Generosity also attracts others to us, so that we can teach them the Dharma and guide them on the path to awakening.

Even though we may practice generosity, harming others will damage our virtuous actions and diminish any benefit we could provide others. By living ethically, we stop injuring others physically and mentally. In addition, our ethical conduct draws others to us because they know we are trustworthy. This enables us to benefit them even more.

To practice generosity and ethical conduct well, fortitude is indispensable. If others are not grateful after we give them something, we might become angry and retaliate. That would harm them and violate our own ethical conduct.

By practicing the fortitude of not retaliating, our ethical conduct will be stable and we will not become discouraged by others’ lack of gratitude when we are generous and kind to them. Fortitude with students, benefactors, and others we encounter in society is necessary because if we are irascible, they will avoid us—depriving us of the opportunity to benefit them.

Ensuring a Precious Human Life in the Future

Fulfilling the collections of merit and wisdom will take a long time. Thus it is essential to ensure that we obtain fortunate rebirths in which all the conducive circumstances for Dharma practice are present. If we are careless and

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fall to an unfortunate birth, we will not be able to help ourselves or practice the Dharma, let alone benefit others.

To fulfill the purposes of self and others, a precious human life with excellent conditions is needed. Practicing the six perfections creates the causes to obtain this.

•

Poverty creates difficulties in practicing the Dharma.

Thus we need resources in future lives, and generosity creates the cause to obtain them.

•

To make use of the resources, a human life is essential; ethical conduct is the principal cause of attaining an upper rebirth.

•

Someone who ruminates with anger or loses their temper is not pleasant to be with and will lack good friends in the Dharma. Practicing fortitude creates the cause to have a pleasing appearance, good personality, and kind companions who encourage our Dharma practice and practice together with us.

•

Being unable to follow through and complete projects is a hindrance to benefiting others. To be able to complete our virtuous projects in future lives and to be successful in all constructive activities we undertake, practicing joyous effort in this life is important. It creates the cause to have these abilities and to attract others to practice together with us in future lives.

•

If our mind is filled with many afflictions in future lives, we will create great destructive karma. Having a stable and peaceful mind is important to maintain focus on what is important and not be distracted by uncontrolled thoughts and emotions. Practicing meditative stability in this life creates the cause for this.

•

The ability to clearly discriminate between misleading teachers and those imparting the correct path is essential, as is the ability to discern what to practice and what to abandon on the path. Cultivating the wisdom that correctly understands the law of karma and its effects creates the cause to have such wisdom in future lives.

Engaging in all six perfections and reaping their results facilitates our Dharma practice in future lives. If the practice of even one perfection is weak or absent, our opportunity to progress on the bodhisattva path in future lives will be limited. For example, without the meditative stability that subdues the gross afflictions, our meditations on bodhicitta and emptiness will be weak; without wisdom, even if we have a good rebirth in the next life, we won’t have one after that because our ignorance will prevent us from creating the causes.

In short, Nāgārjuna sums up the temporal results of engaging in the six perfections that will facilitate our Dharma practice in future lives (RA 438–39):

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From generosity comes wealth; from ethics happiness; from fortitude comes a good appearance; from [effort in] virtue brilliance; from meditative stability peace; from wisdom liberation; compassion accomplishes all aims.

From the simultaneous perfection of all seven, one attains the sphere of inconceivable wisdom— protector of the world.

Thinking about these teachings in relationship to our own lives will deepen our understanding and invigorate our Dharma practice. It is easy to be blasé about having the conditions to continue Dharma practice in future lives.

However, imagining being born in circumstances that lack all the conducive conditions wakes us up to the need to create the causes to have them in future lives. Since those causes must be created now, our mind returns to the present with renewed vigor and interest in practice.

COUR AGEOUS C O M PA S S I O N THE LIBRARY OF WISDOM A N D CO M PA S S I O N , VO L . 6 HIS HOLINESS THE DAL AI L AMA AND VEN. THUBTEN CHODRON PA G E S 5 – 2 0

The Extraordinary Life of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama A N I L L U M I N AT E D J O U R N E Y N A R R AT E D BY T H E DA L A I L A M A T E X T A N D I L L U S T R AT I O N S BY R I M A F U J I TA THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK.

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he Extraordinary Life of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama tells the story of His Holiness’s life in an intimate, timeless, and approachable format featuring luminous illustrations from world-renowned artist Rima Fujita. Narrated by His Holiness, this book features some never-before-shared details of his life and will take you on a mystical journey you won’t soon forget.

HOW I WAS DISCOVERED I am the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. When the Thirteenth Dalai Lama passed away, a search team began looking for his new incarnation based on the instructions that he had left behind.

One day, Tibet’s regent Reting Rinpoche had visions in the holy lake, Lhamoi Latso, one of which was the three letters ah, ka, ma.

clothes—I knew his name without having been told what it was.

I also grabbed and pulled the mala he was wearing on his neck and said, “This is mine! This is mine!” That mala used to belong to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and so I recognized it.

When they were departing for Lhasa I cried and said to them, “Please take me with you!”

Even before their arrival, I used to tell my family, “I am going to Lhasa! I’m going to Lhasa!” and pretend to be packing my bags.

Packing for Lhasa was one of my favorite childhood games.

I was two years old at the time.

Later, when I was found near Kumbum monastery at Taktse, it became quite clear what those three letters meant.

Ah stood for Amdo, Ka for Kumbum, and Ma probably hinted at my name.

Of the three search parties, the one that was sent to Amdo in the east finally found their way to my home in Taktse.

In some ways, this very special holy lake is like a television screen: throughout its history, there have been many episodes of people seeing sacred visions on its surface!

The search team pretended to be travelers and stayed at our house. Kewutsang Rinpoche, the leader of the team, was disguised as a servant, while the real servant wore a monk’s robes. They played with me to observe my behavior.

Although it was my first time meeting Kewutsang Rinpoche—and in spite of his disguise in servants’

THE E X TR AORDINARY LIFE OF HIS HOLINESS THE FOURTEENTH DAL AI L AMA A N I L L U M I N AT E D J O U R N E Y N A R R AT E D B Y THE DAL AI L AMA T E X T A N D I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y R I M A F U J I TA PA G E S 8 – 1 0 , 3 0

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Image credit: Tad Fettig

R EADING DHAR MA TEXTS A W I S D OM P OD C A S T I N T E RV I E W W I T H T H U P T E N J I N PA

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n a recent episode of the Wisdom Podcast, host and Wisdom publisher Daniel Aitken spoke with Thupten Jinpa, beloved translator and author, about his advice on how to read and integrate Dharma texts into your personal practice. They also discussed the art of memorization, which texts most need to be translated, the importance of chanting, and what advice to give to translators. This excerpt from their conversation has been edited and condensed for the Wisdom Journal.

I memorized Candrakīrti’s Entering the Middle Way and Maitreya’s Ornament of Realization as well as Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life when I was in my late teens. At that age, I did not have an expectation that I would understand the meaning of these texts. And in any case, many of these root texts are written in quite cryptic style; their primary role is to, as much as possible, condense in a minimal set of words so that once you start memorizing it, you don’t need to spend a lot of time memorizing it.

Daniel Aitken: Could you tell us about the way you read a Tibetan text in the monastery?

Once we have memorized the text, we sit down at our teacher’s feet and then we get classes on a daily basis, depending on whatever text we are studying. And even then, we don’t read Nāgārjuna directly; we read Nāgārjuna through the lens of a major Tibetan commentator like Tsongkhapa or Gyaltsap or Khedrup in the Geluk tradition. And then if you’re in the Sakya tradition, you would have Gorampa and the other masters. So, you have classes with your teacher for an hour every day, learning from the teacher about a section of a text. The text is divided into two sections over a period of two or three years, or whatever it takes. Then you spend a few hours reading the commentary that you’re using. In Ganden

Thupten Jinpa: Yes, and there was also the question of what is “MMK.” “MMK” is Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way, that was composed by Nāgārjuna, the founder of the Madhyamaka school. Now in the traditional Tibetan monastic system, our approach to a text is a lot more humble than that of a Western Dharma student. We memorize the text when we are much younger, and when we memorize the text there is no expectation that we will understand what the text is saying.

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Shartse, in addition to Tsongkhapa, Gyaltsap, and Khedrup, we have our own textbooks by Panchen Sonam Drakpa. Panchen Sonam Drakpa’s textbooks are used as a kind of a study aid, like study tools. We read them and come up with some questions ourselves, then in the evening, we go to the debating courtyard and we debate it out with our classmates. The idea here is quite beautiful, it’s humble—the idea is that when each student brings a set of questions and then debates as a group, some kind of knowledge will emerge.

The model of knowledge emergence here is more dialogical and collective. It’s very different from the Western model, where you have Newton supposedly sitting under an apple tree and the apple falls down and ping he has a eureka moment and here comes the theory of gravitation. The Western model of knowledge discovery is very solitary. It’s sort of this quiet, silent, genius mind delving ever deeper and finally getting to a eureka moment. In the Tibetan model, it is a little different, actually; there is a sense that knowledge is coemergent and it emerges through a dialogical process. So when you have a group of students, each one of them doesn’t have a full picture but grasps part of it. Through the dialogue, through the debate, then things become clear.

Any major insights you gain as a result of debating are more enduring and more reliable because you have tested it. That’s the Tibetan way. Whereas, in the West . . . First of all, the majority of Western Dharma students are already adults. When they engage with Dharma, they are already adults—many of you have a university level education, so you have already had the experience of critical thinking.

So when picking up a translation of Nāgārjuna’s text, a Western Dharma student would have a lot more courage in actually picking up the book and trying to understand it or read it, even if it’s a root text. The good thing about the Western approach is that the nature of written scholarship in the West is such that, as much as possible, you offer additional tools to the reader in the form of footnotes, an introduction, and a bibliography, so that engagement with the text is richer. In certain ways, for Western Dharma texts and translations, the translator’s role is to fill in those gaps that in the monastery are performed by the teacher. But in the West, because it is more of a solitary engagement, the texts themselves do this.

DA: It’s so fascinating, this description of the solitary approach and, maybe we can say, the dialogical, community approach to learning and reading. And that means the texts have to do different work for the readers, right?

TJ: Yes. DA: And so when you’re translating a text, like a monastery

textbook that was created for a certain setting, it was designed to do a certain amount of work in a certain context. It needs some help to be able to do the same sort of work in the Western translation. That’s interesting.

I really like what you’re saying about this. It’s almost like a dependent arising understanding of how insight comes about, right?

TJ: Yes. DA: So there’s also another thing happening—the Tibetan system is taking advantage of two ways of learning, right?

There’s memorization without understanding, that seems to be a foundation, but on top of the foundation is this more active learning of conversation.

TJ: In the Western educational system, memorization has a bad reputation. It’s seen as rote learning, and it has been abused, particularly in the Eastern system. When you look at the modern education system in India and other parts of the world where they still use memorization, a lot of learning stays at the rote level. So memorization as a teaching tool can be abused. But on the other hand, memorization used in the way that it is supposed to be, like in the Tibetan monasteries, can be very powerful.

For example, the root texts, which are very dense, are written in verse and often in mnemonic style. If you look at Mūlamadhyamakakārikā’s twenty-seven chapters, the root text itself isn’t that long—we’re talking about fifteen or twenty pages altogether. But if you flesh it out, then you have a whole volume of several hundred pages. Now the advantage of memorization is that by memorizing these fifteen or twenty pages, then after studying this entire text, you have a way to retrieve what you have learned and make the connections based on these fifteen pages.

So that’s one very, very powerful role that memorization can play. The other one is to be able to memorize beautiful poetry and inspiring spiritual songs, like Tsongkhapa’s Songs of Experience. For many of these texts, there’s a real difference when you are able to chant them without having to look at the text. You’re also able to recall them.

Many of the lojong, or “mind training,” slogans are meant to be recalled in moments of challenge, so that you can have a quick awareness in a given situation. If you haven’t memorized them, the chances of being able to recall them in any given moment is quite slim. So memorization can really have power.

Another role memorization plays in the monastery is that it is the primary technique for training attention. A lot of us are not that visual. We tend to be more audio-inclined.

The sounds connect to the next words in that way of training. In memorization, one of the biggest challenges of attention is boredom. And for ordinary people, attention

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is called to action when we are afraid or there is novelty in the information. Memorization helps us to apply our attention in a sustained way, without requiring a stimulus of threat or novelty.

DA: It’s very interesting. I think memorization also gives you fluency of thought. What I’ve noticed with the geshes who have memorized all these texts, they have everything at their fingertips, and it’s like a fluency not only of language but of thought.

TJ: Yes. And this is one thing that I really hope that the modern education system can revive. In the old days, memorization was used, but it was used in a negative way. I think there’s a case to be made for bringing back memorization, as it can be very powerful in the training of attention, as well as maintaining a grasp of key information and knowledge.

DA: There are these things that, in the Tibetan tradition, you bring with you when you read a book, right? You’ve memorized a text. You’ve had a teacher take you through it. You’re actually using a monastery textbook like a tool to help you understand the text. And then you have a whole group of peers that are helping you understand the text. What’s your advice to someone who doesn’t have the language skills, who hasn’t been brought up in a monastery, who is either a Dharma student or someone doing academic work. How should they be reading these translations?

TJ: I mean, of course it depends a lot on the genre of text. So if you look at something like Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, then it is meant to be read from cover to cover. The aim of that particular volume is to offer the practitioner a big picture of the entire terrain of the path to enlightenment. And this is one area where I think in the Tibetan tradition is very, very strong. You may have a dedication to a specific sādhana, but your sādhana practice should be situated within the broader context of the entire overview of the Buddhist path.

This is where the specific text makes a difference. Some of them may be more like a practical guide, like tri (khri), we call them—you have various tris, like the ngöndro tri, which is the guide to the preliminaries, and so on and so forth. Some of these texts are very practical and they’re written in a particular style. But these texts often presuppose that the person who is engaging with them either has access to this larger bedrock of understanding or has the benefit of a teacher next to them. So I think just knowing those facts are important. In the end, if you’re a serious Buddhist, there are certain fundamentals that you have no choice but to cultivate your knowledge of—I don’t think there’s any shortcut to go around them. These are a basic understanding of the nature of impermanence, noself, and the dynamic relationship between our thoughts,

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emotions, and perceptions and our passions—the dynamic interaction between all of them and how, in the end, a large part of our experience of suffering and happiness is a function of our state of mind. Some understanding of the ability to self-inquire into the nature of our own mind, that’s also a fundamental given in Buddhism.

Whether you’re approaching a Theravada text, a Vajrayana text, or any other text, it presupposes that you have these fundamentals.

And then if you are inclined toward Mahayana teaching, then some basic teaching on universal compassion, lovingkindness, and bodhicitta are also fundamental. They’re not meant to be simply understood at the level of intellect.

You’re supposed to make an emotional connection, and those emotional connections will only come if you do some practice. Then you have the role of renunciation, the threefold training, and the six perfections. If you’re a serious Buddhist, particularly following the Indo-Tibetan tradition, not having some basic understanding or grasp of these is a real drawback.

Recently, we worked on this massive commentary on Abhidharmakośa, Vasubandhu’s text, and we even had to use thin pages on this because it’s almost a thousand pages long. Now that text is like an encyclopedia, and one I wouldn’t expect any reader, even in Tibetan, to read from cover to cover. In the monastery, we spend years studying this particular text. We may read the entire volume over a period of two years, but we won’t read it from cover to cover. Where the modern versions of these texts are so good is that, first of all, there’s a comprehensive list of content, which allows you to engage directly with your chosen topic of interest. Secondly, we have indexes. The index can really help you fine tune if you are interested in a particular aspect of karmic theory. For example, one of the beautiful sections of this Abhidharma text is the whole chapter on dhyānas, the concentration levels, and the cultivation of śamatha, and so on and so forth.

The index helps contemporary Dharma student readers to simply go into that specific section and then read around it. It’s always important to read the context in which a particular topic pops up so that you always have the bigger picture. There are ways in which modern Dharma books, because we use subheadings to highlight the key sections and much more, dividing up the chapters in a more manageable way, the use of these classical texts can become much more efficient. In the old days, texts presupposed deep familiarity by a teacher who will guide you through the specific sections. The students didn’t expect to find things on their own. These days, with the unicode system, you can find every occurrence of a particular term, but in the old days, those kinds of facilities were not there.

DA: That’s a great answer and solution for the modern reader to fill in the gaps. So what you’re saying is that some books are meant to be read from front to back, but then there are also these encyclopedia books. In that case, you don’t read it from cover to cover. Obviously, the book you were talking about is Ornament of Abhidharma, which comes to 1,300 pages, only so “thin”—which is quite thick—because of the extremely thin paper we used. It’s amazing! This is a book where you can go in, and if you want to see what Vasubandhu said about karma, you can use the table of contents and go straight to it. Actually the index, in a way, plays the role of the teacher in guiding you to the right part of the text. We do have some advantages in that case.

You have also been mapping out different ways of reading books based on the type of book. It might be a lamrim book, or stages of the path, to be read from front cover to back cover, or instead an encyclopedia like the Abhidharmakośa, or maybe a mind training one, which has teachings that are meant to be carried with you.

TJ: Yes, yes. Mind training teachings and also some of the experiential songs are really meant to have an important role. There’s a beautiful line in the mind training text Seven-Point Mind Training where it says, “in every action train by means of words.” What it is suggesting is that you can use phrases like a mantra and the power comes from the fact that you endow specific meaning and association and experiences with a particular type of phrase.

Like, for example, the phrase “transform every adversity into a spiritual path,” that becomes a concept. What you do then is cultivate that practice, develop the habituation, and then every time you’re confronted with adversity, a difficult experience, you just tell yourself, “transform into an opportunity; transform into a spiritual path.” I think this is where the power of mind training slogans come from.

They’re pithy and short, but they’re meant to be memorized, and you’re supposed to endow them with the meaning by yourself through studying, reading, getting teachings from the lama, being inspired by their power, and implementing them in your own life. Then, the next time you simply have to use the phrase and then the whole association comes rushing in front of you.

DA: It’s very obvious as you’re talking that these ideas are very much alive in you and part of your life and part of your experience. You can just tell from the way you’re explaining it and in the way you’re expressing yourself. I was wondering, what is the secret to taking some words on a page and bringing it into your life, and then also sustaining it for a long time? What’s some advice for that?

TJ: I think, in my own case, I read widely. I generally tend to read mostly Tibetan texts. If I read something in English,

I’ll generally read about current affairs or history, but most of my reading is from Tibetan texts. I tend to read quite widely, but then some specific practical texts will speak to me. I remember that they are powerful. Then, I find a way to bring all the things that I’ve learned from my reading into this shorter text. Lojong especially—the lojong texts are very short. And then, for me, many of the songs of experience are really beautiful. Some of Paṇchen Losang Chögyen’s songs are beautiful, and then Kalsang Gyatso the Seventh Dalai Lama, Tsongkhapa, and Dza Patrul on self-inquiry and impermanence. So I think you need to find those inspiring verses because individuals differ. Some verses will speak to you and some won’t.

The most important thing is, if you are a serious Dharma practitioner, you can’t skip having some formal sitting sessions. It reinforces—that’s the power of contemplative practice. Contemplative space and time allows us to widen our mind, connect with the silence that is inside us, and then bring reflection and contemplation from that quiet, settled state of mind. Those kinds of things are very difficult to do on the go, unless you are a yogi. There are some of course, but I’m not one of them!

One of the most important things is the setting of intention. This is where Tsongkhapa’s teachings are very powerful. Tsongkhapa says that the power of intention should be such that it is like the grief of a mother who has just lost her most loving child. That mother may be able to function in day-to-day life because things need to be done, but there will always be in the background that grief that colors everything she experiences, that colors everything she does. Tsongkhapa is saying that that is how intention should work. You set your intention with bodhicitta, compassion, and then that creates a flavor for your entire day. I think the combination of a quiet sitting, reflection, strong intention-setting, and then in your day-to-day life, in actual living interactions with other people, as much as possible you bring awareness. I think this is how we progress on the path.

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“Tsongkhapa’s insistence on cultivating the insight into emptiness is based on the recognition that our habitual grasping at intrinsic existence is so deeply ingrained that no amount of suspension of discursive thought can undo it.”

–T H U P T EN J I N PA , I L L U M I N AT I N G T H E I N T E N T

THE SIMILE OF THE LUMP OF FOAM AN EXCERPT FROM READING THE B U D D H A’ S D I S C O U R S E S I N PĀ L I

SIMILE OF THE LUMP OF FOAM ( P H E Ṇ A P I Ṇ Ḍ Ū PA M A S U T TA ) (SN 22:95; III 140–42) The intention behind Reading the Buddha’s Discourses in Pāli is to help students of Early Buddhism learn to read the texts of the Pāli Canon in the ancient Indian language in which they have been preserved, the language known as Pāli. Bhikkhu Bodhi presents suttas here in three ways: first, the text is given in Pāli; second, a literal translation is offered, word for word or phrase by phrase; and third, a translation is made into natural English. By comparing the literal translations with the corresponding portion in Pāli, and following closely the grammatical explanations, students of Pāli should be able to determine the meaning of each word and phrase and gain familiarity with the syntax of Pāli sentences and the distinctive idioms and style of expression in the Pāli suttas.

[1. FORM]

Ekaṃ samayaṃ bhagavā ayojjhāyaṃ viharati gaṅgāya nadiyā tīre. Tatra kho bhagavā bhikkhū āmantesi: “Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, ayaṃ gaṅgā nadī mahantaṃ pheṇapiṇḍaṃ āvaheyya. Tamenaṃ cakkhumā puriso passeyya nijjhāyeyya yoniso upaparikkheyya. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyeyya, tucchakaññeva khāyeyya, asārakaññeva khāyeyya. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, pheṇapiṇḍe sāro?

One occasion the Blessed One at Ayojjhā was dwelling, of Ganges River on the bank. There the Blessed One the monks addressed: “Suppose, monks, this Ganges River a great foam-lump would carry along. That-this an eyepossessing man would see, would ponder, thoroughly would investigate. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollowjust would appear, insubstantial-just would appear. What for could be, monks, in foam-lump substance?

On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Ayojjhā on the bank of the Ganges River. There the Blessed One addressed the monks: “Suppose, monks, this Ganges River would carry along a great lump of foam. A clear-sighted man would see this, ponder it, and thoroughly investigate it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a lump of foam?

“Evameva kho, bhikkhave, yaṃ kiñci rūpaṃ atītānāgatapaccuppannaṃ ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ

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dūre santike vā, taṃ bhikkhu passati nijjhāyati yoniso upaparikkhati. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyati, tucchakaññeva khāyati, asārakaññeva khāyati. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, rūpe sāro?

“Just so, monks, whatever form past-future-present, internal or external or, gross or subtle or, inferior or superior or, which far near or, that a monk sees, ponders, thoroughly investigates. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollowjust would appear, insubstantial-just would appear. What for could be, monks, in form substance?

“So too, monks, whatever form there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a monk sees it, ponders it, and thoroughly investigates it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in form?

[2. FEELING]

“Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, saradasamaye thullaphusitake deve vassante udake udakabubbuḷaṃ uppajjati c’eva nirujjhati ca. Tamenaṃ cakkhumā puriso passeyya nijjhāyeyya yoniso upaparikkheyya. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyeyya, tucchakaññeva khāyeyya, asārakaññeva khāyeyya. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, udakabubbuḷe sāro?

“Suppose, monks, in autumn-time, when the big-drops sky raining, on the water a water-bubble arises and ceases and. That-this an eye-possessing man would see, would ponder, thoroughly would investigate. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollow-just would appear, insubstantial-just would appear. What for could be, monks, in water-bubble substance?

“Suppose, monks, in the autumn, when the sky is raining with big raindrops falling, a water bubble arises and ceases on the water. A clear-sighted man would see this, ponder it, and thoroughly investigate it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a water bubble?

“Evameva kho, bhikkhave, yā kāci vedanā atītānāgata­ paccuppannā ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ dūre santike vā, taṃ bhikkhu passati nijjhāyati yoniso upaparikkhati. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyati, tucchakaññeva khāyati, asārakaññeva khāyati. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, vedanāya sāro?

“Just so, monks, whatever feeling past-future-present, internal or external or, gross or subtle or, inferior or superior or, which far near or, that a monk sees, ponders, thoroughly investigates. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollowjust would appear, insubstantial-just would appear. What for could be, monks, in feeling substance?

“So too, monks, whatever feeling there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a monk sees it, ponders it, and thoroughly investigates. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in feeling?

[3. PERCEPTION]

“Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, gimhānaṃ pacchime māse ṭhite majjhanhike kāle marīcikā phandati. Tamenaṃ cakkhumā puriso passeyya nijjhāyeyya yoniso upaparikkheyya. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyeyya, tucchakaññeva khāyeyya, asārakaññeva khāyeyya.

Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, marīcikāya sāro?

“Suppose, monks, of summer in last month, when stood mid-day time, a mirage shimmers. That-this an eye-possessing man would see, would ponder, thoroughly would investigate. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollow-just would appear, insubstantialjust would appear. What for could be, monks, in a mirage substance?

“Suppose, monks, in the last month of the hot season, at midday, a mirage shimmers. A clear-sighted man would see this, ponder it, and thoroughly investigate it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a mirage?

“Evameva kho, bhikkhave, yā kāci saññā atītānāgata­ paccuppannā ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ dūre santike vā, taṃ bhikkhu passati nijjhāyati yoniso upaparikkhati. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyati, tucchakaññeva khāyati, asārakaññeva khāyati. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, saññāya sāro?

“Just so, monks, whatever perception past-futurepresent, internal or external or, gross or subtle or, inferior or superior or, which far near or, that a monk sees, ponders, thoroughly investigates. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollow-just would appear, insubstantial-

just would appear. What for could be, monks, in perception substance?

“So too, monks, whatever perception there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a monk sees it, ponders it, and thoroughly investigates it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in perception?

[4. VOLITIONAL ACTIVITIES]

“Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, puriso sāratthiko sāragavesī sārapariyesanaṃ caramāno tiṇhaṃ kuṭhāriṃ ādāya vanaṃ paviseyya. So tattha passeyya mahantaṃ kadalikkhandhaṃ ujuṃ navaṃ akukkukajātaṃ. Tamenaṃ mūle chindeyya; mūle chetvā agge chindeyya; agge chetvā pattavaṭṭiṃ vinibbhujeyya. So tassa pattavaṭṭiṃ vinibbhujanto pheggumpi nādhigaccheyya, kuto sāraṃ? Tamenaṃ cakkhumā puriso passeyya nijjhāyeyya yoniso upaparikkheyya. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyeyya, tucchakaññeva khāyeyya, asārakaññeva khāyeyya.

Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, kadalikkhandhe sāro?

“Suppose, monks, a man heartwood-needing, heartwood-seeking, heartwood- search wandering, a sharp axe having taken, a woods would enter. He there would see a large plaintain-trunk, straight, fresh, without shoots. That-this at the root would cut; at the root having cut, at the top would cut; at the top having cut, the coil would unroll. He its coil unrolling softwood even not would find, how then heartwood? That-this an eyepossessing man would see, would ponder, thoroughly would investigate. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollowjust would appear, insubstantial-just would appear. What for could be, monks, in plantain-trunk substance?

“Suppose, monks, a man needing heartwood, seeking heartwood, wandering on a search for heartwood, would take a sharp axe and enter a woods. There he would see a large plantain trunk, straight, fresh, without an inflorescence. He would cut it down at the root; having cut it down at the root, he would cut it off at the crown; having cut it off at the crown, he would unroll the coil. As he unrolls the coil, he would not find even softwood, how then heartwood? A clear-sighted man would see this, ponder it, and thoroughly investigate it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a plantain trunk?

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“Evameva kho, bhikkhave, ye keci saṅkhārā atītānāgata­ paccuppannā ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ dūre santike vā, taṃ bhikkhu passati nijjhāyati yoniso upaparikkhati. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyati, tucchakaññeva khāyati, asārakaññeva khāyati. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, saṅkhāresu sāro?

“Just so, monks, whatever volitional-activities pastfuture-present, internal or external or, gross or subtle or, inferior or superior or, which far near or, that a monk sees, ponders, thoroughly investigates. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollow-just would appear, insubstantialjust would appear. What for could be, monks, in volitional activities substance?

“So too, monks, whatever volitional activities there are, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a monk sees them, ponders them, and thoroughly investigates them. As he is seeing them, pondering them, and thoroughly investigating them, they would appear to him to be just void, they would 48

appear just hollow, they would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in volitional activities?

[5. CONSCIOUSNESS]

“Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, māyākāro vā māyākārantevāsī vā catummahāpathe māyaṃ vidaṃseyya. Tamenaṃ cakkhumā puriso passeyya nijjhāyeyya yoniso upaparikkheyya. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyeyya, tucchakaññeva khāyeyya, asārakaññeva khāyeyya.

Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, māyāya sāro?

“Suppose, monks, a magician or a magician-apprentice or at a crossroads a magical-illusion would display. Thatthis an eye-possessing man would see, would ponder, thoroughly would investigate. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollow-just would appear, insubstantial-just would appear. What for could be, monks, in a magicalillusion substance?

“Suppose, monks, a magician or a magician’s apprentice would display a magical illusion at a crossroads. A clear-

“So too, monks, whatever consciousness there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a monk sees it, ponders it, and thoroughly investigates it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial. For what substance could there be in consciousness? [ 6 . L I B E R AT I O N ]

“Evaṃ passaṃ, bhikkhave, sutavā ariyasāvako rūpasmimpi nibbindati, vedanāyapi nibbindati, saññāyapi nibbindati, saṅkhāresupi nibbindati, viññāṇasmimpi nibbindati.

Nibbindaṃ virajjati. Virāgā vimuccati. Vimuttasmiṃ vimuttamiti ñāṇaṃ hoti. ‘Khīṇā jāti vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ nāparaṃ itthattāyā’ti pajānātī”ti.

“Thus seeing, monks, the learned noble-disciple in form-too is disenchanted, in feeling-too is disenchanted, in perception-too is disenchanted, in volitionalactivities-too is disenchanted, in consciousness-too is disenchanted. Being disenchanted, becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion is liberated. In liberated ‘liberated’ thus knowledge occurs. ‘Finished birth, lived the spiritual-life, done what-is-to-be-done, not-further for such-a-state,’ understands.”

sighted man would see this, ponder it, and thoroughly investigate it. As he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it, it would appear to him to be just void, it would appear just hollow, it would appear just insubstantial.

For what substance could there be in a magical illusion?

“Evameva kho, bhikkhave, yaṃ kiñci viññāṇaṃ atītānāgatapaccuppannaṃ ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ dūre santike vā, taṃ bhikkhu passati nijjhāyati yoniso upaparikkhati. Tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyati, tucchakaññeva khāyati, asārakaññeva khāyati. Kiṃ hi siyā, bhikkhave, viññāṇe sāro?

“Just so, monks, whatever consciousness past-futurepresent, internal or external or, gross or subtle or, inferior or superior or, which far near or, that a monk sees, ponders, thoroughly investigates. To him that seeing, pondering, thoroughly investigating, void-just would appear, hollow-just would appear, insubstantialjust would appear. What for could be, monks, in consciousness substance?

“Thus seeing, monks, the learned noble disciple becomes disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with volitional activities, disenchanted with consciousness. Being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion he is liberated. In regard to what is liberated, the knowledge occurs thus: ‘Liberated.’ He understands: ‘Finished is birth, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no further for this state of being.’”

G R A M M AT I C A L E X P L A N AT I O N S [1. FORM]

ayojjhāyaṃ viharati gaṅgāya nadiyā tīre: “was dwelling at Ayojjhā on the bank of the Ganges River.” The line mentions two places where the Buddha was dwelling, both in the locative, with the verb viharati between them. The first is Ayojjhā (modern Ayodhya), ayojjhāyaṃ being a feminine locative; and the second, the bank of the Ganges River, with gaṅgāya nadiyā a feminine genitive and tīre the locative of a neuter noun. tamenaṃ (= taṃ enaṃ). The use of two adjacent pronouns to designate the same entity is for emphasis: “just this one” or “this very one” (Geiger §106.1). cakkhumā: literally, “possessing eyes,” the masculine singular nominative of cakkhumat, used to mean one of good sight; here it qualifies puriso.

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yoniso: an ablative of yoni, “down to its origin or foundation” (PED), used as an adverb to mean “thoroughly, orderly, wisely, properly, judiciously.” tassa taṃ passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato: “as he is seeing it, pondering it, and thoroughly investigating it.” The pronoun tassa represents the subject to whom the lump of foam appears; the actions he performs are described by the present participles passato, nijjhāyato, and upaparikkhato. These are all masculine singular datives of the type “found with verbs of manifestation and meeting” (Wijesekera §97b). Taṃ, signifying the lump of foam, is the accusative object of the participles, but it also becomes the implicit grammatical subject of the verb khāyeyya (optative of khāyati), “would appear.” The three words beginning with rittakaṃ, each emphasized by eva, indicate how the lump appears; perhaps they should be understood as adverbs of manner. The modifications are as follows: rittakaṃ + eva > rittakaṃyeva > rittakaññeva.

The same construction is employed in the application of the simile, which describes how the monk investigates the corresponding aggregate. sāro: “substance”; the word originally denoted the heartwood of a tree, but its meaning was broadened to cover the core of anything—a substance, substantial value. The adjective asāraka, which occurs just above in the phrase asārakaññeva khāyati, signifies the absence of a core, lack of substance.

[2. FEELING]

thullaphusitake deve vassante: “when the sky is raining with big raindrops falling”; a locative absolute construction, with deve, the sky, as the locative subject described by the compound thullaphusitake, “[composed of ] large drops.”

The action is represented by vassante, the locative present participle of vassati, rains. udake: This is not part of the locative absolute construction but an independent locative meaning “on [the surface of ] the water.”

[3. PERCEPTION]

gimhānaṃ pacchime māse: “in the last month of the hot season.” Gimhānaṃ, a plural of gimhā, is the summer, perhaps standing for gimhānaṃ māsānaṃ, “of the hot months.” Pacchime māse is a locative signifying a period of time. ṭhite majjhanhike kāle: literally, “when the midday time is standing.” This too is a locative absolute, with kāle, “time,” the subject, described by the adjective majjhanhike, composed of majjha, “middle,” and aha, “day” (with the nasal inserted for euphony), and the adjectival suffix -ike

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in agreement with kāle. The action is indicated by the past participle ṭhite, “stood,” used with a present sense.

[4. VOLITIONAL ACTIVITIES]

sāratthiko sāragavesī: “needing heartwood, seeking heartwood”; two bahubbīhis describing puriso. Sāratthiko is composed of sāra, “heart-wood, substance,” and attha, “need,” with the suffix -iko in agreement with puriso.

Sāragavesī is a compound of sāra and gavesī (the masculine nominative of gavesin), “seeking.”120 sārapariyesanaṃ caramāno: “wandering on a search for heartwood”; the masculine nominative present participle of carati, “walks, wanders,” in the middle voice, taking the act of searching, pariyesanaṃ, as its object.

Sārapariyesanaṃ is a tappurisa compound (probably a dative tappurisa). ujuṃ navaṃ akukkukajātaṃ: “straight, fresh, without an inflorescence”; three adjectives describing kadalikkhandhaṃ. The exact meaning of kukkukajātaṃ is uncertain but I take it to be the “terminal inflorescence.”121 [5. CONSCIOUSNESS]

catummahāpathe: a numerical kammadhāraya compound of catur, “four,” mahā, “great,” and patha, “path, road,” here in the locative. vidaṃseyya: optative of vidaṃseti, which PED defines as “to make appear, to show,” derived from vi + daṃseti < dasseti.

120. Gavesin itself is originally a compound of go, “cow,” and esin, “seeking,” but by the time of the Nikāyas it had come to mean simply “seeking.”

121. According to http://bananaplants.net/banananinfo.html: “Banana is a tropical herbaceous plant consisting of an underground corm and a trunk (pseudostem) comprised of concentric layers of leaf sheaths. At 10 to 15 months after the emergence of a new plant, its true stem rapidly grows up through the center and emerges as a terminal inflorescence which bears fruit.” The kukkuka is probably the “terminal inflorescence.”

READING T H E B U D D H A’ S D I S C O U R S E S I N PĀ L I A PR AC TIC AL GUI DE TO THE L ANGUAGE OF THE ANCIENT BUDDHIST CANON BHIKKHU BODHI PA G E S 2 0 6 – 1 5

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Introducing Four Tibetan Practice Traditions AN EXCERPT FROM F O U R T I B E TA N L I N E A G E S

BY SARAH HARDING

T

he selection of texts in this book, the eighth volume in the Library of Tibetan Classics series, presents a sampling of the core teachings from four distinct traditions among the myriad of Tibetan Buddhist practices.

The Pacification tradition (zhi byed) harkens back to one of the most important and fascinating Indian masters to teach in Tibet in the early days of the second spreading: Pha Dampa Sangyé (d. 1117). Machik Labdrön (b. 1031/55) benefited from his teachings and initiated a line of her own remarkable practices called Severance (gcod) that have been continuously popular up to the present. The Shangpa Kagyü is an independent lineage founded by Khyungpo Naljor (1050/990–1127), the great yogi of the Khyung clan, based on teachings he received in India from one hundred fifty gurus, particularly the two ḍākinīs of timeless awareness: Niguma and Sukhasiddhī. Finally, the Bodong tradition centers on one of the—if not the—most prolific masters of

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S P R I N G

2 0 1 8

Tibet, Bodong Paṇchen Choklé Namgyal (1375/76–1451), whose collected works fill 137 volumes and who established the most important line of female incarnations.

The majority of the texts herein—twenty out of twentythree—are taken from a nineteenth-century anthology called the Treasury of Precious Instructions (Gdams ngag mdzod) collected and arranged by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé, or Yönten Gyatso (1813–1900). This great master and his cohorts in eastern Tibet, particularly Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo (1820–92), took on the tremendous task of collecting and printing in one place as many texts as they could, primarily for the sake of preservation. But they also undertook this to display side by side the profound practices of all the Buddhist teaching lineages that derived from India as a counterbalance to a growing sectarianism in Tibet. This activity formed the core of what became known as the eclectic movement (ris med). Kongtrul’s collections are known as the

Five Great Treasuries. Aside from the Treasury of Knowledge, which is his own summary of Buddhist subjects, the Treasury of Precious Instructions is the most comprehensive and representative of many Tibetan traditions.

As the title suggests, the Treasury of Precious Instructions contains the instructions (gdams ngag, upadeśa) that are directives for meditation and ritual practice, with an emphasis on practice rather than philosophy. Aside from a few source texts, most of the contents are indigenous Tibetan compositions but may be generally considered as deriving ultimately from the many tantric texts that entered Tibet from India. These, along with the vast array of Buddhist literature of all types that flooded into Tibet during the early and later disseminations, presented the Tibetans with an enormous challenge of translation and organization. One has to admire the feats of categorization that many Tibetan scholars undertook with great energy and without much help from the Indian literature itself.

Jamgön Kongtrul explains the source of his own system for this particular collection of instructions at some length in his table of contents (dkar chag), the Catalog of the Treasury of Precious Instructions: In general there seem to have been many lines of transmission, both major and minor, that developed in this Land of Snows as extensive lineages of accomplishment. But a summary of the principal ones, those that constitute the very foundation, consists of those renowned as the eight great mainstream traditions [according to] the great learned and accomplished master Prajñārasmi. (…)

That is to say, in the succession of Tibetan rulers were those known as the three ancestral monarchs—magical emanations of the lords

of the three families. It was due to their superb motivation and enlightened activities that the sun of the Victorious One’s teachings spread its illuminating rays throughout the darkness of the Land of Snows. The heart essence of these teachings lies in the eight great mainstream lineages of accomplishment, made up of those who upheld the extensive traditions of the Early Translation school of Nyingma, the Kadampa, the Lamdrepa, the Marpa Kagyü, the Shangpa Kagyü, the Shijé and associated teachings, the Jordruk, and the Dorjé Sumgyi Nyendrup.

Of course, no organizational system is perfect or even complete, but to compose an anthology requires structure.

One need only study the many editions, redactions, and controversies regarding the so-called Tibetan Buddhist canon (Kangyur and Tengyur) and extra-canonical (again, so-called) collections to appreciate the plasticity of such an enterprise. According to Kongtrul’s editor, Karma Tashi Chöphel, the Treasury of Precious Instructions was first conceived and printed in ten volumes, as follows: (1) Secret Mantra Nyingma, (2) Kadam, (3) Sakya Lamdré, (4 & 5) Marpa Kagyü, (6) Shangpa Kagyü, (7) Shijé and Chö, (8) Dorjé Naljor and Orgyen Nyendrup, (9) lesser guidances, and (10) the Hundred Guidances of Jonang. Various editions have appeared since then, with the fullest being the Shechen edition, consisting of eighteen volumes. In this expanded version, Nyingma, Kadam, and Sakya occupy two volumes each, and Marpa Kagyü four volumes. Of relevance to our collection here, the Shangpa Kagyü grew to two volumes, Shijé and Chö were expanded to fill one volume each, and the lesser guidance manuals, called “various cycles of guidance,” fill two volumes. Clearly one could go on adding to these subcategories as more and more texts are surfaced and composed, and create even more categories, almost endlessly. Kongtrul himself admitted: Generally speaking, in each of the eight great mainstream lineages of accomplishment there exists such a profound and vast range of authentic sources from the sutra and tantra traditions, and such limitless cycles of scriptures and pith instructions, that no one could compile everything.

Rather, in the selection here, choices have been made to give

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the reader access to some core teachings of four important traditions in a manageable format. This represents but a fraction of even the earliest edition of Kongtrul’s Treasury, but it is certainly enough to appreciate the diversity of Tibetan religious practice. Several of the eight main practice lineages, also known as the Eight Great Chariots (shing rta chen po brgyad), are well-represented, with Shangpa texts from the fifth lineage, and texts of the Pacification and Severance together constituting the sixth. A few texts from the Bodong tradition are found in Kongtrul’s “various cycles of guidance,” and a brief but glorious appearance is presented here. The three texts added to this volume that are not in the Treasury—all composed by important Tibetan masters— serve to enhance the range of teachings from the Severance and Shangpa lineages. Still, being a miscellaneous selection, it is best to introduce each in its own ground.

But first it must be noted that all the texts in this collection belong to the Vajrayana or Secret Mantra aspect of the Mahayana, and as such there are a number of prerequisites for their implementation. These are spelled out clearly in Kongtrul’s Catalog, even as a mere catalog, and vastly expanded in his Treasury of Knowledge, and in the manuals of almost all the great masters of Tibet. In a number of the texts that follow, Vajrayana preliminary practices are indeed included. But even these are based on the assumption that a relationship has been established between a qualified master endowed with wisdom and compassion and a qualified student with renunciation, diligence, and faith.

PA C I F I C AT I O N ( S H I J É ) The first tradition presented here is known as Pacification of

Suffering, a general term identified with a phrase in the Heart Sutra “the mantra that utterly pacifies all suffering.” Certainly all of these teachings are firmly rooted in the perfection of wisdom, but in fact it is a very general term covering the myriad teachings attributed to the South Indian Dampa Sangyé (d.

1117), also known in Tibet as Pha Dampa (Father Dampa), Dampa Gyagar (Indian Dampa), and Dampa Nakpo (Black Dampa). His Indian name, Kamalaśrī or Kamalaśīla, created a good deal of confusion when his identity was conflated with that of the Indian scholar Kamalaśīla (c. 740–95). He was also identified with Bodhidharma (late fourth to early fifth centuries), the patriarch of Chinese Chan Buddhism, after his twelve-year sojourn in that country. This would give him a lifespan of some 570 years, which was attributed to a special practice called “taking the essence” (bcud len).

Regarding the name of this lineage, Dampa himself said, “To beings tormented by suffering, explain immaculate, comforting pacification.” Kongtrul elaborates on its distinctive approach: “Other teachings first refine away the cause [of suffering]—afflictive emotions—thus averting the consequential suffering. In this system, the result— suffering—is directly refined and afflictive emotions are uprooted as a natural consequence of that. These are extraordinarily profound methods.”

Dampa Sangyé visited Tibet anywhere from three to seven times, during which he imparted a vast array of esoteric and tantric teachings, including two tantras that are regarded as the source texts: the Ālikāli Inconceivable Secret Great River Tantra and Mahāmudrā Symbol Tantra, the Secret in the Hearts of All Ḍākinīs. Although of course tantras are the spoken words of the Buddha in the form of Vajradhara, it seems likely from the colophons that Dampa himself at least wrote them down, if not wrote them. The overarching concern of these tantras is the vowels (āli) and consonants (kāli) of the Sanskrit alphabet and the benefits of repeating various combinations of syllables. The sounds themselves carry tremendous spiritual power without the need for lexical meaning, such as mantras have. Sound itself is realized as the essence of all phenomena (dharma) as well as that of the Buddha’s teachings (Dharma).

Chapter 1 of this book, Essential Precious Segments of the Inconceivable Secret Tantra, presents three of the twenty-four chapters of the Ālikāli Tantra. Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo extracted these segments and added a structural outline and a few notes for inclusion in the Treasury. According to his colophon, he considered these three chapters the most essential. They are also the most comprehensible in this enigmatic tantra of syllabic practice. Kongtrul weaves the tantra’s title into his praise of Dampa Sangyé: The mighty lord of accomplishment Dampa Sangyé mastered the semantic meaning of the unborn ālikāli

and through inconceivable secrets taught countless approaches to Dharma corresponding to the faculties and dispositions of beings.

As we learn in chapter 2—Distilled Elixir: A Unified Collection of the Guidebooks of the Early, Middle, and Later Pacification—Dampa’s teachings are traditionally counted in three transmissions, with the middle transmission further divided into three successions, making five main lineages holding separate teachings, as well as minor ones. This large text, both detailed and comprehensive, was composed by the Nyingma master Lochen Dharmaśrī (1654–1717/18), the Great Translator of Mindroling Monastery. Not all of his sources are available now, but it is clear that without Dharmaśrī, most would be lost. Kongtrul says as much in the Catalog: While there were extensive common and uncommon sections of this Dharma cycle and the three transmission lineages were previously widespread, these days only their names remain. But Minling Lochen Dharmaśrī exerted great effort to receive whatever transmission existed [at the time], and composed manuals and ritual liturgies. It is due to his great kindness that at least the fundamental elements of the ripening empowerments and liberating instructions of the early, middle, and later transmissions, particularly those of Dampa Kunga’s system, now appear.

Indeed, Dharmaśrī’s compositions constitute some 80 percent of the Shijé volume in the Treasury of Precious Instructions, including all the necessary empowerment and transmission rituals. Distilled Elixir then provides the actual instruction for the practices of all five lines of teaching.

In chapter 3, Dampa Sangyé’s Advice to Bodhisattva Kunga, we have a sample of Dampa’s cryptic style as he imparts advice on how to prepare for and practice Dharma in the future, when the times are rife with degeneration. Jangchup Sempa (Bodhisattva) Kunga (1062–1124), his main successor in the last transmission, plays the role of an innocent, unable to believe that it will be so bad. It echoes many such prophetic texts in Tibet, with a long litany of dreadful yet curiously familiar circumstances and perversions. Kunga receives and records the conversation in this text, although it is not mentioned in Kongtrul’s Catalog nor in his Record of Teachings Received. Nor is it found in the early Shijé Collection or among the texts in the Tengyur attributed to Kamalaśīla, as Dampa Sangyé is known there. Perhaps it is an example of loosely floating texts that were precisely the purpose of Kongtrul’s preservation project.

SEVERANCE (CHÖ) The tradition known as Severance of Evil Object (Bdud kyi gcod yul) began with the renowned Tibetan woman Machik Labkyi Drönma, or Machik Labdrön (b. 1031 or 1055).

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However, the scheme of Kongtrul’s eight great practice lineages precludes systems that were not imported from India, so technically it is considered a subsidiary or branch of Pacification. Some later historical narratives place Machik Labdrön in the position of receiving teachings from Dampa Sangyé, though her own guru known as Sönam Lama was likely the main conduit for such transmissions. This has led to a popular belief that she was the main disciple and even consort of Indian Dampa, and credit is given to Dampa as the source of the Severance teachings. However, no original texts on Severance practice have surfaced in the early textual corpus of Pacification, so it is best to consider them as separate traditions. What they most certainly have in common is a strong grounding in the teachings on the perfection of wisdom. There is ample evidence of this in the earliest texts attributed to Machik, as well as the only Indian text given as a source. In the narratives (rnam thar) of Machik Labdrön’s remarkable life of nearly a century, her main catalysts were visions of the goddess Tārā and epiphanies arising from her recitation of the Perfection of Wisdom texts (Prajñāpāramitā sūtras), particularly the sections on devils (bdud; māra). Gradually this led to the development of an elaborate post-meditation practice to enhance or even test the yogin’s understanding of emptiness and compassion from the main practice. This explains why the term for conduct and that for cutting or severance, both pronounced as chö but spelled differently, are equated in this tradition. This vanquishing conduct (brtul zhugs) is meant to be applied to one’s worst fears, most notably the spirits of haunted places.

Thus Severance became known as a charnel ground practice used by yogins wandering in scary places, bedecked with morbid accessories, conjuring spirits with their thighbone trumpets, compassionately feeding them with their own imagined corpses, and recognizing their nonexistent nature.

It is this colorful aspect or branch of Severance that gained immense popularity in Tibet, often as exorcism or healing, and it continues to hold practitioners worldwide in its thrall.

The mendicant lifestyle of its practitioners (gcod pa) meant that a major network of monasteries was not established for this lineage, but it was adopted and incorporated by virtually all other schools in Tibet. It spawned an enormous amount of liturgical literature, along with beautiful tunes and musical accompaniment, to aid in the ritual enactments and graphic visualizations. Some of these and their commentaries are presented next in this volume.

The Great Bundle of Precepts (chapter 4) is certainly one of the earliest texts of Severance and the most likely to have been taught by Machik Labdrön herself. The story of Machik’s delivery of these teachings marks an important event in her life. It was taught in a single day to a huge crowd that included three Indian scholars who arrived instantly in Tibet by means of the practice called swift foot to investigate

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the authenticity of Machik and her increasingly popular teachings. As a woman and the originator of a new tradition, she was under considerable suspicion, even as a possible demoness, and often had to prove her worth. She explains that the name Bundle of Precepts reflects the long, middlelength, and short precepts of the Buddha Śākyamuni, which she had studied previously. In other words, this teaching was the authentic word of the Buddha. The contents thus center on the Buddha’s Perfection of Wisdom teachings and their seemingly problematic issue of devils or māras. Māra is understood to be a kind of spiritual death (as in the Sanskrit root mṛ- for death). That is to say, it refers to anything that would impede one’s progress in the development of spiritual insight. The classic four māras are death, embodiment as five aggregates, afflictive emotions, and complacent privilege (i.e., “child of the gods”). It is the wisdom of emptiness that overcomes these projected apparitions of devils. Here the four devils specific to the Severance tradition are first presented: the tangible and intangible devils, the devil of exaltation, and the devil of inflation. It is significant that the visualizations of body offering (lus sbyin) are not mentioned. The title is further explained in the text itself: Severance means to sever conceptual thinking.

Precepts means unchanging in nature.

Bundle means teachings as a bunch of explanations.

The next two selections are early commentaries from the thirteenth century. Chapter 5, Heart Essence of Profound Meaning, is by Jamyang Gönpo (b. 1196 or 1208). It claims to be the earliest and source of all others. It does not present a clear instruction for actually implementing the practice but offers advice and reminders on doing so with the assumption that the practitioner already knows the procedure. Jamyang Gönpo’s detailed commentary on it, the Big General Guide to Severance, may have been intended as the real source of information. But one can glean even here that the practice of body offering is becoming more prominent. The title Heart Essence of Profound Meaning also refers generally to a whole system of teachings in the Severance tradition, perhaps with Jamyang Gönpo’s work as its source.

The Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorjé (1284–1339) had a strong connection with the Severance teachings and was instrumental in codifying them and bringing them into the Kagyü lineage. The Practice Manual on the Profound Severance of Evil Object (chapter 6) presents a very clear and concise manual for practice, and it is truly a model for all future iterations in the Kagyü literature. Rangjung Dorjé received the complete teachings of Dampa Sangyé when he was eighteen, and Machik Labdrön’s Severance teachings from Lama Kunga Döndrup and Lama Namtsowa at Tsurphu Monastery. His many compositions on Severance are found in volume 11 of his collected works. This text is

adorned at the end with an exquisite poem that summarizes the core of Buddhist practice, of Severance practice, and of wrong practice.

Kamtsang master was free to borrow what he needed to form this practice. In this case, he formulated the early liturgies to create a Severance healing ritual.

Chapter 7 presents Essence of the Vital Meaning, by the prolific scholar Jonang Tāranātha (1575–1634). It lays out the main instructions and sequence of practice, but it was meant to accompany his liturgical composition called Supplication Liturgy for the Essence of Vital Meaning in order to be fully implemented. This line of Severance instructions, known as the Gyalthang tradition, was received in a visionary experience of Machik Labdrön by Gyalthangpa Samten Öser. The instructions passed eventually to Kunga Drölchok of Jonang (1507–66) and were included in the 108 Profound Guidebooks of Jonang, which is a kind of prototype of the Treasury of Precious Instructions. They then passed to his reincarnation Tāranātha and thence to Kongtrul.

This text especially emphasizes meditation techniques and the introduction of mind’s nature, called the meaning of the Mother (yum don), referring to the Mother Perfection of Wisdom (prajñāpāramitā).

With this method, the four devils are simply severed in basic space (dbyings su gcod).

These are the distinctive main practices, while the feasts of body offering are part of the conclusion.

The Lion’s Play in the Conduct of Perfect Wisdom (chapter 10) is by Kunkhyen Pema Karpo (1527–92). This text is not included in the Treasury of Precious Instructions, though many of Pema Karpo’s instructions can be found in volume 10, representing the flourishing Drukpa school, one of the eight subsects that branched off from Pakmo Drupa (1110–70), himself the founder of one of the four schools started by disciples of Gampopa Sönam Rinchen (1079– 1153). The brilliant Pema Karpo was the Fourth Gyalwang Drukpa, a line of incarnate lamas of the Drukpa Kagyü. He received these special teachings from his master, Avadhūtī Tsunmochen (1478–1542), also known as Kunpang Sherab Gyatso, who was a student of his predecessor the Third Gyalwang Drukpa, Jamyang Chökyi Drakpa (1478–1523).

But Avadhūtī received them in a direct vision of Machik Labdrön, in which she told him:

“As a woman and the originator of a new tradition, [Machik] was under considerable suspicion, even as a possible demoness, and If you wish to practice the conduct of the profound perfection of wisoften had to prove dom, train in this way: If you blend basic space and intrinsic awareness, it her worth.” becomes vajra-like. If you cast out the body

Chapter 8, Rainfall of Desirables, and chapter 9, the Body Donation and Feeding Ritual Arranged as Convenient Liturgy, were published together in the Shechen edition of the Treasury, apparently combined by Karma Chakmé. Rainfall of Desirables is by Könchok Bang (1525–83), better known as Könchok Yenlak, the fifth Shamar incarnation. It contains some unusual practical advice, such as when to travel to and from practice locations, how to get there using various gaits, which apparitions are problematic, and how to prevent hail.

In chapter 9, Karma Chakmé combines two ritual texts by previous Karmapas: Rangjung Dorjé’s Ninefold Spirit Feast and Six Earth Lord Application and Mikyö Dorjé’s SingleSeat Severance Poem. Karma Chakmé or Rāga Asya (1613– 78) was a remarkable scholar with a vast literary output from both the Kagyü and Nyingma traditions. He founded the monastery of Nedo, which became the locus of the Nedo Kagyü subsect that continued his teachings, called the Nedo or Chakmé tradition. Two volumes of his collected works are devoted to Severance, many of them amalgamations of former works, such as this one. With some three hundred years of Kagyü Severance masters before him, the great

as food, it fills the vast expanse of illusion. If you sever the inflation of dualism, it is heroic conduct.

Dampa the Indian taught me just these three lines, by which I have completely entered the sphere of activity of all tathāgatas.

This references a set of three or four absorptions (samādhi), which are then connected with the phases of the Severance practice and which give this text its structure: vajra-like absorption, illusion-like absorption, and heroic conduct absorption. In some cases, these are accompanied by a fourth absorption, that of the fully flexing lion (seng ge rnam par gying pa), which may be reflected in the title of the text, Lion’s Play (Seng ge rnam par rtse ba). Kongtrul similarly bases a liturgical piece on this set, also connecting them respectively with view (blending space and awareness), meditation (casting out the body as food), and conduct (enhancement), in relation to Severance practice.

The source of this unusual scheme deserves some attention.

In chapter 8 of the Ālikāli Tantra, a main source for the Shijé tradition (see chapter 1), these four absorptions are presented in connection with the four yogas of mahāmudrā as follows: the fully flexing lion absorption with one-pointed yoga; illusion-like with freedom from elaboration; heroic

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conduct with single taste; and vajra-like with nonmeditation.

Pema Karpo himself explains them similarly in an extensive commentary on another of Dampa Sangyé’s works, where it is clear that they have the same progressive order as the four yogas with which they are identified. All of these absorptions were taught separately in various sutras. Vajra-like absorption is usually the final stage of the tenth bodhisattva level, resulting in buddhahood. But in Pema Karpo’s text here, the order of absorptions follows the typical procedure for a Severance practice (sādhana). According to several histories and biographies of the Severance tradition, Machik Labdrön was present when Dampa Sangyé bestowed a Severance teaching called the Six Pieces (Brul tsho drug), the sole link between Dampa and Severance. Though an early version of this is not available—probably because Dampa severely restricted it from being written or spread—there is a similarly titled text in the Dingri Volumes that may contain the import of that crucial transmission. In that text we find these same three absorptions applied to the three phases of instruction in the classic Severance instruction called Opening the Sky Door. Vajra-like absorption relates to the preliminaries and the introduction or pointing-out instruction to the nature of mind, illusion-like absorption applies to the practice of going to haunted places and facing spirits and such, and illusion-like absorption is the conduct of totally letting that go. Machik Labdrön is not included in the lineage recorded in this text. However, if the Six Pieces was somehow the source of Avadhūtī’s teachings, then the words he heard from Machik, “Dampa the Indian taught me just these three lines…,” make good sense.

[Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen] typifies much of the best of Tsong kha pa’s legacy. He was both an accomplished scholastic and a profound master of the esoteric. He was completely free of the sectarian rivalries and hatreds that so marred this time.

It is through Jé Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and his teacher known as Umapa Pawo Dorjé that Machik Labdrön’s Severance entered the Gelukpa school. From then it was held only in the Ganden Oral Tradition in which Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen figures prominently. According to his biography in the life stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition, Chökyi Gyaltsen received Severance transmissions from Damchö Palbar, the twenty-second throne holder of Ganden.

However, in the succession of the current text he lists his recognized predecessor, Ensapa Losang Döndrup (1504/5– 65/6), the Third Paṇchen Lama, and then his own mentor, Khedrup Sangyé Yeshé (1525–91), who also contributed an instruction to the literature. It is said that it was Losang Döndrup who really opened up and clarified the Gelukpa Severance teachings with his compositions. Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen must have received all of these transmissions and arranged them in this beautiful liturgical manual that fully delineates the practice of Severance. It follows the standard order that developed in later Severance texts but with original composition and lovely poetic interludes.

Chapter 11 is the last selection in this section, entitled A Guide for Those Who Desire Liberation. The author is Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen (1570–1662), the First Paṇchen Lama. He is also considered the Fourth Paṇchen Lama by a system that recognizes preincarnations retroactively. This remarkable Gelukpa scholar was active in so many areas— receiving innumerable teachings, assuming the abbacy of multiple monasteries, mediating between warring factions, facilitating the recognition and enthronement of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, and so on—that the Tibetologist Gene Smith was inspired to remark:

F O U R T I B E TA N LINEAGES CORE TEACHINGS OF P A C I F I C AT I O N , S E V E R A N C E , S H A N G PA K AGY Ü, A N D B O D O N G T R A N S L AT E D B Y S A R A H H A R D I N G PA G E S 1 – 1 2

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THE WISDOM EXPER IENCE I N S P I R AT I O N . A D V E N T U R E . AWA K E N I N G .

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f you’re not familiar with it, the Wisdom Experience is the premier membership site for Buddhists. Wisdom Publications has been committed to providing highquality, authentic Buddhist teachings for over thirty-five years in a wide range of formats. The Wisdom Experience is a way for you to enjoy all these teachings in an easy-to-use, centralized way. There are three levels of membership—Free, Plus, and All-Access—depending on what type of content you want access to, with paid monthly subscriptions starting as low as $4.95. Additionally, as a nonprofit organization, we’ll be sending subscription revenue right back into creating more amazing Buddhist content and supporting our teachers and authors.

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This work is perhaps the most influential explanation of Candrakīrti’s seventh-century classic Entering the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatāra).

Written as a supplement to Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, Candrakīrti’s text integrates the central insight of Nāgārjuna’s thought—the rejection of any metaphysical notion of intrinsic existence—with the well-known Mahayana framework of the ten levels of the bodhisattva, and it became the most studied presentation of Madhyamaka thought in Tibet.

Completed the year before the author’s death, Tsongkhapa’s exposition of Candrakīrti’s text is recognized by the Tibetan tradition as the final standpoint of Tsongkhapa on many philosophical questions, particularly the clear distinctions it draws between the standpoints of the Madhyamaka and Cittamātra schools.

Written in exemplary Tibetan, Tsongkhapa’s work presents a wonderful marriage of rigorous Madhyamaka philosophical analysis with a detailed and subtle account of the progressively advancing mental states and spiritual maturity realized by sincere Madhyamaka practitioners.

The work remains the principal textbook for the study of Indian Madhyamaka philosophy in many Tibetan monastic colleges, and it is a principal source for many Tibetan teachers seeking to convey the intricacies of Madhyamaka philosophy to non-Tibetan audiences.

Though it is often cited and well known, this is the first full translation of this key work in a Western language.

There’s nothing we care about more than the transmission of authentic, liberating Dharma to future generations— and if you care about that too, you’re going to love the Wisdom Experience. We hope you’ll join us on this exciting adventure.

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An Introduction to Tibetan Calligraphy AN EXCERPT FROM WISDOM ACADEMY COURSE T I B E TA N C A L L I G R A P H Y

BY TA S H I M A N N OX

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elcome, everybody. We’ll just go through some practicalities first. This is presented as a Tibetan calligraphy course. What does the word calligraphy mean in Western terms? It is a word that is made out of two words, both originally Greek, calli and graphy. The root of calli means “good” or “beautiful,” and the root of graphy means “to write.” So in simple terms, calligraphy means “beautiful writing,” but what does beautiful writing mean?

Beautiful writing means that it comes from a discipline.

Beautiful writing means it has a proportion to it that sings. It has a flow to it. There is something that comes

UCHEN

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from oneself in the writing, and we can write like this with Tibetan also, especially with the uchen script we will be learning. But we can only be expressive and do well if we have the right foundation, and the right foundation means construction lines and proportions. This first part will be a little bit technical, learning the right proportion and the right sort of lines. Once we have a foundation it will become much easier.

As a written language, Tibetan is probably one of the more varied in different styles. It’s quite extraordinary; you’d think it was a different language, comparing some of the styles. In this class I’m teaching the uchen script because it

TSUGTUNG UMÉ

is the classical and arguably the first of the established script styles, certainly since Buddhism came to Tibet.

Uchen is called the classical style because it does have its origins in Sanskrit. The exact history of its real origins is debatable. There are certain historical figures in Tibet, such as Thönmi Sambhota, who was a scholar and one of the main ministers to the first king of Tibet. He was reputedly sent to India and studied different forms of Sanskrit, and he is said to have been commissioned by the king to come up with the uchen script. Now this was a long time ago, and there’s no definite proof of this, but it makes a nice story for sure.

One thing that is certain is that uchen does relate to Gupta Sanskrit in some way or another. Actually, if you look at the contemporary Devanagari Sanskrit which is used in India for writing Hindi, et cetera, it has the same sort of principle of the letters hanging down from a “head.” In English we write up from the line, but in Devanagari they write down from the line and this is the same for uchen. U means “head” and chen means “having,” so uchen means letters that start with a head.

The next set of Tibetan writing styles, which looks so different from uchen, is umé. Mé means “not,” so it doesn’t have a head. These examples are two totally different styles of umé, and you can see that we still write down from a horizontal line and drop the letter down from above, but there’s not such a definite straight line across the top as with the uchen script. Because of the square nature of the script, uchen actually lends itself much more to carve into wood, so this is why a lot of manuscripts are woodblock printed in

DRUTSA UMÉ

uchen style. Umé is the handwriting style.

Why do we tend to study uchen in the West as the first choice? I think it has something to do the way that Tibetan Buddhism was introduced into the West. Some of the first typewriters that were invented, and certainly some of the first fonts that were composed, were in uchen. Umé is much more difficult to make into a font for a typewriter, and

some of the first typefaces for typewriters were invented in Bhutan and other places in the Himalayas. A lot of the Buddhist manuscripts are written and printed in uchen, and so the Buddhist teachings that have come over in these manuscript forms are in uchen; that’s what we see all the time. For this reason, uchen became more established as the common writing style in the West.

But in Tibet, when a young monk, nun, or layperson is learning the Tibetan language, uchen is the very last script they would normally learn.

They would actually learn the tsugring style first. Tsugring has a very distinct, long straight leg. The reason why this is learned first is because the young person learning has to train their hand to be able to pull a really long, even line down the leg of the letter without too much wobble. To achieve such a nice, straight, and confident line you need good control over your hand. So that’s where the practice comes in—to achieve that nice quality of line.

Once someone has learned that particular script style, then they could move on to a slightly shorter style, which is called tsugtung. Tsugtung still has the basic components of tsugring, but the leg has been brought much shorter.

This shortening was for practical reasons, specifically more lines could be fit on the paper, as paper in Tibet was an expensive commodity.

TSUGRING UMÉ

covered surface of the wood plank. No paper involved. They fill up the surface with writing. After getting a critique from the teacher, the slate is wiped clean, to re-dust and start again. That’s how to learn mastering these long strokes.

We’re going to be getting used to our pens for this. Uchen is not as simple as pulling one nice, even line down. Uchen is a little different in that you’re pulling a nice long, straight line down as well as twisting the pen at the same time, so you end up with a fine point to the end of the line. There is this added dimension to get a beautiful-looking quality of line.

All script examples created and provided by Tashi Mannox.

The way that they would learn as young monks and nuns was to have a plank of wood that is nice and smooth, and quite often they would score horizontal lines into this plank of wood, which served as construction lines to write to.

Then the wood would be dusted either with white-colored earth or with other dust made from particular plants.

Using a pen made of bamboo, which is a common writing instrument right across the Far East, the pen is dipped into water—not ink—and where they would write their lines on the wood, the water would create a clear mark in the dust-

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The Buddha on Mental Stillness and Insight AN EXCERPT FROM UNR AVELING THE INTENT T R A N S L AT E D BY T H E B U D D H AVAC A N A T R A N S L AT I O N G R O U P F O R 8 4 0 0 0 : T R A N S L AT I N G THE WORDS OF THE BUDDHA

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nraveling the Intent, commonly known by its Sanskrit title the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, is one of the most influential sūtras in the history of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In it, the Buddha gives a systematic overview of his three great cycles of teachings, which he refers to in this text as the “three Dharma wheels.” In the process of explaining the meaning of these doctrines, the Buddha unravels difficult points regarding the ultimate and relative truths, the nature of reality, and the contemplative methods conducive to the attainment of complete and perfect awakening.

In the following excerpt, generously provided by 84000, the bodhisattva Maitreya poses questions to the Buddha about the practice of mental stillness (śamatha) and insight (vipaśyanā) meditation. In response, Maitreya receives a profound set of teachings on the illusory nature of appearances and the practices leading to awakening.

T H E B U D D H A O N M E N TA L STILLNESS AND INSIGHT 8.­6 “Blessed One, should we refer to the path of mental stillness and the path of insight as being distinct or indistinct from one another?”

“Maitreya, we should refer to them as neither distinct nor indistinct. Why are they not distinct? Because mental stillness takes mind, which is the referential object of insight, as its object. Why are they not indistinct? Because insight takes a conceptual image as its referential object.”

8.­7 “Blessed One, what image should bodhisattvas focus on as their object of concentration? Should we consider it as distinct from mind or not?”

“Maitreya, we must consider that it is not distinct from mind. Why? Because this image is merely a representation.

Maitreya, I have explained that cognition is constituted by the mere representation that is the referential object [of this cognition].”

“Blessed One, if this image that is the object of concentration is not distinct from the mind, how does this very mind investigate itself?”

“Maitreya, [ultimately] no phenomenon whatsoever investigates any phenomenon at all. However, the mind that arises as [if it were conscious of an object] appears as [if it were investigating itself ]. Maitreya, it is like this: based on a form [in front of a mirror], you see that same form on the clear surface of this mirror and realize that you are seeing a reflection, an image.

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8.­8 “Blessed One, should we say that mental images naturally present to beings, such as the appearance of material form and so forth, are also not distinct from mind?”

“When do they combine both insight and mental stillness and unite them evenly?”

“Whenever they direct their attention toward the onepointedness of mind.”

“Maitreya, we should say that they are not distinct.

However, foolish beings with erroneous ideas do not understand just as it is that [mental] images are mere representations. As a consequence, their minds are mistaken.”

“Maitreya, this is the referential object of insight, the conceptual image that is the object of concentration.”

8.­9

“Maitreya, it is the referential object of mental stillness, the mind that takes the image as an object.”

“Blessed One, when do the bodhisattvas practice only insight?”

“Whenever they direct their attention toward mental appearances without interruption.”

“When do the bodhisattvas practice only mental stillness?”

“Whenever they direct their attention toward the unimpeded mind without interruption.”

“Blessed One, what is a mental appearance?”

“What is the unimpeded mind?”

“What is one-pointedness of mind?” “[One-pointedness of mind is] realizing in regard to the image that is the object of concentration, ‘This is merely a representation,’ and, on realizing that, directing one’s attention toward true reality.”

8.­10

“Blessed One, how many kinds of insight are there?”

“How many kinds of mental stillness are there?”

“Maitreya, there are three: insight arising from phenomenal appearance, insight arising from inquiry, and insight arising from awakening.”

“There are three kinds of mental stillness corresponding to the unimpeded mind. Maitreya, it is also said to be of eight kinds: the first, second, third, and fourth meditative absorptions, the domain of the infinity of space, the domain of infinite cognition, the domain of nothingness, and the domain of neither conception nor lack of conception.

It is also of four kinds: immeasurable loving-kindness, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable joy, and immeasurable equanimity.”

“What is insight arising from phenomenal appearance?”

“It is the insight in which attention is directed exclusively toward a conceptual image, the object of concentration.”

“What is insight arising from inquiry?”

“It is the insight in which attention is directed in order to perfectly understand whatever phenomena were not yet understood by means of wisdom.”

“What is insight arising from awakening?”

“It is the insight in which attention is directed on whatever phenomena one perfectly understood by means of wisdom in order to attain the happiness of liberation.”

8.­11

8.­12 “Blessed One, you have mentioned ‘mental stillness and insight that are established in Dharma’ and ‘mental stillness and insight that are not established in Dharma.’ What do these terms mean?”

“Maitreya, the mental stillness and insight that are established in Dharma are the mental stillness and insight whose object is in agreement with phenomenal appearance as presented in the teachings that bodhisattvas have understood and contemplated.

“You should know that the mental stillness and insight that are not established in Dharma are the mental stillness and insight whose object, being unrelated to the teachings that bodhisattvas have understood and contemplated, is based on other instructions or precepts, such as taking as referential objects putrefying or festering corpses as well as any other similar objects, the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena, the suffering [inherent to all conditioned phenomena], the selflessness of all phenomena, and nirvāṇa as the state of peace.

“Maitreya, regarding this, I consider those bodhisattvas who follow the teaching based on the mental stillness and insight established in Dharma to possess sharp faculties. As for those faithfully following the teaching based on the mental stillness and insight that are not established in Dharma, I consider them to possess inferior faculties.”

8.­13 “Blessed One, you also mentioned ‘the mental stillness and insight with a specific teaching as a referential object’ and ‘the mental stillness and insight with a universal teaching as a referential object.’ What do these terms mean?”

“Maitreya, suppose that bodhisattvas practice the mental stillness and insight that take as a referential object an individual teaching, such as a specific discourse, among all the teachings they have understood and contemplated. This is called mental stillness and insight with a specific teaching as a referential object.

Now, suppose that bodhisattvas unify, condense, subsume, or gather teachings from various discourses into a single

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one, thinking that all these teachings converge toward true reality, lean toward true reality, and tend toward true reality; converge toward awakening, lean toward awakening, and tend toward awakening; converge toward nirvāṇa, lean toward nirvāṇa, and tend toward nirvāṇa; and converge toward a shift in one’s basis of existence, lean toward a shift in one’s basis of existence, and tend toward a shift in one’s basis of existence. Thinking that all these teachings actually refer to the immeasurable and infinite virtuous truth, they direct their attention [toward their referential object].

This is [called] mental stillness and insight with a universal teaching as a referential object.”

8.­14 “Blessed One, you also mentioned mental stillness and insight ‘with a fairly universal teaching as a referential object,’ ‘with a highly universal teaching as a referential object,’ and ‘with an infinitely universal teaching as a referential object.’ What do these terms mean?”

“Maitreya, suppose the bodhisattvas gather together [the meaning of ] each of the twelve collections of my teaching, from the sūtras up to the extensive discourses, the teachings on miracles, and the instructions. Having done so, they direct their attention toward this referential object. This should be known as the mental stillness and insight with a fairly universal teaching as a referential object.

When the bodhisattvas gather together all the teachings or discourses they have understood and contemplated and then direct their attention onto this referential object, this should be known as the mental stillness and insight with a highly universal teaching as a referential object.

“When the bodhisattvas gather together the teachings imparted by the tathāgatas that refer to the infinite truth, the infinite words and letters expressing it, and the ever-increasing infinite wisdom and eloquence of the tathāgatas and then direct their attention toward this referential object, this should be known as the mental stillness and insight with an infinitely universal teaching as a referential object.”

8.­15 “Blessed One, how do bodhisattvas obtain mental stillness and insight with a universal teaching as a referential object?”

“Maitreya, you should know that they obtain them through five causes: (1) At the time of directing their attention, they destroy all supports of corruption in every moment. (2) After giving up the variety of conditioned phenomena, they rejoice in the joy of Dharma. (3) They perfectly know the immeasurable and unceasing brilliance of Dharma in the ten directions. (4) They bring together, without conceptualizing them, the phenomenal appearances that are imbued with the accomplishment of the goal and in harmony with the

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element conducive to purification. (5) In order to attain, perfect, and accomplish the truth body, they seize the most supreme and auspicious cause.”

8.­16 “Blessed One, how should we know at which point the bodhisattvas cognize and obtain the mental stillness and the insight that have a universal teaching as a referential object?”

“Maitreya, you should know that they cognize them on the first bodhisattva stage, Utmost Joy, and obtain them on the third stage, Illuminating. Maitreya, in spite of this, even beginners among bodhisattvas should not abstain from training in them and directing their attention toward their referential object.”

8.­17 “Blessed One, in what way do mental stillness and insight become a concentration associated with mental engagement and investigation? In what way do they become a concentration not with mental engagement but with investigation only? In what way do they become a concentration without either mental engagement or investigation?”

“Maitreya, when mental stillness and insight attend to experiences of the manifest and coarse phenomenal appearances mentioned in the teachings the bodhisattvas have understood, investigated, and examined, this is the concentration associated with mental engagement and investigation.

“When mental stillness and insight do not consist in attending the experiences corresponding to the manifest and coarse phenomenal appearances mentioned in their teachings but consist in being merely mindful of appearances, namely, in attending the experience of subtle phenomenal appearances, this is a concentration not with mental engagement but with investigation only.

“When mental stillness and insight consist in practicing by directing one’s attention toward the experience of the effortless Dharma with regard to each and every phenomenal appearance mentioned in these teachings, this is a concentration without either mental engagement or investigation.

“Moreover, Maitreya, mental stillness and insight arising from inquiry consist in a concentration associated with mental engagement and investigation. The mental stillness and insight arising from awakening is a concentration not with mental engagement but with investigation only. The mental stillness and insight taking a universal teaching as its referential object consist in a concentration without either mental engagement or investigation.”

8.­18 “Blessed One, what is the cause of mental stillness?

What is the cause of setting the mind? What is the cause of equanimity?”

“Maitreya, when one feels excited or feels one might become excited, one directs one’s attention toward phenomena that induce sorrow and the unimpeded mind.

This is what is called the cause of mental stillness.

“Maitreya, when one feels drowsy or feels one might become drowsy, one directs one’s attention toward phenomena that induce joy and mental appearance. This is what is called the cause of setting the mind.

“Maitreya, whether one is devoted to mental stillness or insight only, or practices them in union, when one applies one’s mind without being affected by these two secondary defilements, [namely agitation and drowsiness,] one directs one’s attention spontaneously. This is what is called the cause of equanimity.”

8.­19 “Blessed One, the bodhisattvas who practice mental stillness and insight possess the analytical knowledge of designations as well as the analytical knowledge of the objects of designation. In what way do they possess these analytical knowledges?”

“Maitreya, the analytical knowledge of designations comprises five points: names, phrases, letters, their individual apprehension, and their collective apprehension. What is a name? It is that which superimposes a so-called essential or distinctive characteristic on the phenomena conducive to affliction and purification for the sake of communication. What is a phrase? It is that which is based on a collection of those very names taken as its support and basis in order to designate objects of affliction and purification. What are letters? They are phonemes acting as the basis for both names and phrases. What is the analytical knowledge that apprehends them individually? It is the analytical knowledge resulting from directing one’s attention toward a specific referential object. What is the analytical knowledge that apprehends them collectively? It is the analytical knowledge resulting from directing one’s attention toward a general referential object. When all these five points are put together, this should be known as the analytical knowledge of designations. This is how bodhisattvas possess the analytical knowledge of designations. [. . .]

“Maitreya, you should know that they include all the types of concentration of the hearers, bodhisattvas, and tathāgatas that I have taught.”

“Blessed One, from which causes do mental stillness and insight arise?”

“Maitreya, they arise from a pure discipline and a pure view resulting from hearing and contemplating [the Dharma] as their causes.”

“Blessed One, please explain what their results are.”

“Maitreya, a pure mind and a pure wisdom are their results.

You should know that all mundane and supramundane virtuous qualities of the hearers, the bodhisattvas, and the tathāgatas are also their results.”

“Blessed One, what is the activity of mental stillness and insight?”

“Maitreya, they liberate one from the two kinds of bonds: the bonds of phenomenal appearance and the bonds of corruption.”

8.­33 “Blessed One, among the five obstacles mentioned by the Blessed One, which are obstacles to mental stillness, which are obstacles to insight, and which are obstacles to both?”

“Maitreya, caring about the body and objects of enjoyment is an obstacle to mental stillness. Not obtaining instructions from noble beings as desired is an obstacle to insight.

Living in a state of confusion and being content with bare necessities are obstacles to both. On account of the first of these, one will not exert oneself. On account of the second, one will not exert oneself through to the completion of practice.”

“Blessed One, among the five obstructions mentioned by the Blessed One, which are obstructions to mental stillness, which are obstructions to insight, and which are obstructions to both?”

“Maitreya, agitation and remorse are obstructions to mental stillness. Laziness, lethargy, and doubts are obstructions to insight. Craving for desired objects and malicious thoughts are obstructions to both.”

“Blessed One, when is the path of mental stillness purified?”

“At the time when agitation and remorse have been conquered.”

“Blessed One, when is the path of insight purified?”

“At the time when laziness, lethargy, and doubts have been conquered.”

8.­32

8.­34

“Blessed One, how many types of concentration are included within mental stillness and insight?”

“Blessed One, how many kinds of mental distractions will bodhisattvas engaged in mental stillness and insight experience?”

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4. “If bodhisattvas direct their attention toward the phenomenal appearance that is the inner subject’s object of concentration by relying upon the phenomenal appearances of outer objects, then this is mental distraction produced by phenomenal appearances.

5. “If bodhisattvas become conceited by identifying themselves with the body afflicted by corruption with regard to sensations arising in the course of directing the inner subject’s attention, this is mental distraction ensuing from corruption.”

8.­35 “Blessed One, for which obstacles do mental stillness and insight serve as antidotes from the first stage of the bodhisattva path up to the stage of a tathāgata?”

1. “Maitreya, on the first stage, mental stillness and insight are antidotes to the defilement of bad destinies as well as to the affliction of karma and birth.

2. “On the second stage, they are antidotes to the arising of confusion resulting from subtle transgressions.

3. “On the third stage, they are antidotes to attachment for desirous objects.

“Maitreya, they will experience five kinds of mental distractions: the mental distraction with regard to the way one directs one’s attention, the mental distraction with regard to outer objects, the mental distraction with regard to the inner subject, the mental distraction produced by phenomenal appearances, and the mental distraction resulting from corruption.

1. “Maitreya, if bodhisattvas forsake the way attention is directed in the Great Vehicle and fall into the way hearers and solitary realizers direct their attention, then this is mental distraction regarding the way one directs one’s attention.

2. “If bodhisattvas let their minds wander among the five external objects of desire, entertainments, phenomenal appearances, conceptualizations, defilements, secondary defilements, and external referential objects, then this is mental distraction with regard to outer objects.

3. “If bodhisattvas sink into laziness and lethargy, experience the taste of absorption, or become stained by any secondary defilement related to absorption, then this is mental distraction with regard to the inner subject.

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4. “On the fourth stage, they are antidotes to craving for absorption and Dharma.

5. “On the fifth stage, they are antidotes to the exclusive rejection of saṃsāra and exclusive inclination toward nirvāṇa.

6. “On the sixth stage, they are antidotes to the abundant arising of phenomenal appearances.

7. “On the seventh stage, they are antidotes to the subtle arising of phenomenal appearances.

8. “On the eighth, they are antidotes to exerting oneself toward what is without phenomenal appearance as well as to not having mastery over phenomenal appearances.

9. “On the ninth, they are antidotes to not having mastery in teaching the Dharma in every aspect.

10. “On the tenth, they are antidotes to not having obtained the perfect analytical knowledge of the truth body.

11. “Maitreya, on the stage of a tathāgata, mental stillness and insight are antidotes to the extremely subtle defiling obstructions and the even more subtle cognitive obstructions. By fully eliminating these obstructions, one abides within the truth body that has been completely purified. As a

consequence, one obtains the realization of the object corresponding to the accomplishment of the goal—the gnosis and vision that are utterly free from attachment and hindrance.”

8.­36 “Blessed One, in what way do bodhisattvas obtain mental stillness and insight, so that they will attain the unsurpassable complete and perfect awakening?”

“Maitreya, once bodhisattvas have obtained mental stillness and insight, they consider the seven aspects of true reality. With their minds concentrated on the doctrine that has been heard and contemplated, they direct their attention inwardly toward the true reality that has been well understood, contemplated, and focused upon. As they direct their attention in this way on true reality, their minds then remain in complete equanimity toward each and every subtle phenomenal appearance that manifests, not to mention coarse ones.

“Maitreya, these subtle phenomenal appearances include the phenomenal appearances appropriated by mind; the phenomenal appearances of experiences, representations, affliction, and purification; the internal or external phenomenal appearances and those that are both internal and external; the phenomenal appearances related to the notion that one must act for the benefit of all beings; the phenomenal appearances of knowledge and suchness; the phenomenal appearances of the four noble truths of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path; the phenomenal appearances of the conditioned, the unconditioned, the permanent, the impermanent, and the nature inherent to what is subject to suffering and change or what is not subject to change; the phenomenal appearance distinct or indistinct from the defining characteristic specific to the conditioned; the phenomenal appearance of everything as a result of having

the notion of ‘everything’ in reference to anything; and the phenomenal appearance of the selflessness of the person and of phenomena. The bodhisattva’s mind remains in complete equanimity toward all these phenomenal appearances as they manifest.

“Continually practicing in this way, they will in due time purify their minds from obstacles, obstructions, and distractions. In the course of this practice, the seven aspects of the cognition that is personal and intuitive, the gnosis that is the awakening to the seven aspects of true reality, will arise. Such is the bodhisattvas’ path of seeing. By obtaining it, bodhisattvas have entered the faultless state of truth, are born into the lineage of tathāgatas, and, upon obtaining the first stage, enjoy all the advantages of this stage. Because they have already obtained mental stillness and insight, they have attained their two referential objects: the image with conceptualization and the image without conceptualization.

Thus, having obtained the path of seeing, they attain the point where phenomena end.”

Citation: ’phags pa dgongs pa nges par ’grel pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo The Noble Sūtra of the Great Vehicle “Unraveling the Intent” Āryasaṃdhinirmocananāmamahāyānasūtra Toh 106 Degé Kangyur, vol. 49 (mdo sde, tsha), folios 1.b–55.b https://read.84000.co/translation/toh106.html 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha is a global nonprofit initiative to translate the Buddha’s words from the Tibetan Buddhist Canon into modern languages, and to make them available to everyone. For more information, please visit http://84000.co/.

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In This Issue ILLUMINATING THE INTENT Tsongkhapa Translated by Thupten Jinpa $79.95 | 720 pages ebook $54.99 | page 4 THE DHARMA OF POETRY John Brehm $15.95 | 184 pages ebook $10.99 | page 12 MAHĀMUDRĀ His Eminence the Twelfth Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche $19.95 | 200 pages ebook $12.99 | page 20 COURAGEOUS COMPASSION The Dalai Lama and Thubten Chodron $29.95 | 496 pages ebook $17.99 | page 26

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THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF HIS HOLINESS THE FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA Narrated by the Dalai Lama Text and Illustrations by Rima Fujita $19.95 | 56 pages ebook $11.99 | page 35 READING THE BUDDHA’S DISCOURSES IN PĀLI Bhikkhu Bodhi $49.95 | 552 pages ebook $34.57 | page 44 FOUR TIBETAN LINEAGES Translated by Sarah Harding $79.95 | 688 pages ebook $54.99 | page 52 TIBETAN CALLIGRAPHY Tashi Mannox Course | 10 lessons $247 | page 64

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THE MIDDLELENGTH TREATISE ON THE STAGES OF THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT

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Translated by David Gonsalez

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QUESTIONING THE BUDDHA

Art by Tashi Dhargyal

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THE ESOTERIC COMMUNITY TANTRA WITH THE ILLUMINATING LAMP Translated by John Campbell and Robert Thurman $69.95 | ebook $35.99

SUPERIORITY CONCEIT IN BUDDHIST TRADITIONS Bhikkhu Anālayo

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About Wisdom Wisdom Publications is the leading publisher of contemporary and classic books and practical works on Buddhism, mindfulness, and meditation. We also provide the premier membership platform for Buddhists, having launched the Wisdom Experience in 2019. Through the Wisdom Experience we provide online courses, films, lecture series, and videos to watch, as well as many of our books, with more being added each month, for members to read online.

We trace our beginnings to the influential Tibetan teachers Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Yeshe’s vision of “publications for wisdom culture” led to the founding of Wisdom.

We are a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to • connecting you with Buddhist wisdom, • cultivating writers and teachers the world over, • advancing critical scholarship, • preserving and sharing Buddhist literary culture, • and helping people find and engage with the teachers, teachings, and practices for a wise and compassionate life.

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T H E

As 2021 continues to unfold and as we plan our publishing program for the year, I am filled with gratitude that Wisdom Publications is able to bring so many of these important and deep Dharma teachings into the world. Our mission as a nonprofit publisher is to make authentic Buddhist teachings widely available and accessible. In this issue of the Wisdom Journal, we have decided to showcase these texts in longer form to help you dive into the teachings from these books across our publishing program for the year. It is my hope that these gems of Dharma inspire your practice!

I’m delighted to announce that two new volumes in our Library of Tibetan Classics series have been published this spring: Illuminating the Intent: An Exposition of Candrakīrti’s Entering the Middle Way by Tsongkhapa and translated by Thupten Jinpa as well as Four Tibetan Lineages: Core Teachings of Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyü, and Bodong, translated by Sarah Harding.

Scholars and practitioners who read multiple languages will be excited to hear that Thupten Jinpa’s translation of Illuminating the Intent is available in Wisdom’s online reading room with new language functionality, allowing you to easily move between the English and the Tibetan (and also some Sanskrit). Plus and All-Access Wisdom Experience members can choose to show the Tibetan, Sanskrit, and English translations side-by-side, in-line, or with pop-ups to customize your reading experience based on your preference. You can start reading in multiple languages at wisdomexperience.org/read-illuminating/.

Readers interested in mahāmudrā will be excited to hear that we recently published Mahāmudrā: A Practical Guide, Wisdom’s first publication from H. E. the Twelfth Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche. At the heart of this book are Rinpoche’s practical instructions on how to settle and work directly with the mind to discover the nature of the mind. These instructions are given as commentary

Also recently published was Courageous Compassion, the latest volume in the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Ven. Thubten Chodron. If you’ve been enjoying this series so far, then you will find the exploration of bodhisattvas’ activities across multiple Buddhist traditions in this latest volume particularly fascinating.

Poetry lovers will discover John Brehm’s The Dharma of Poetry to be a rich and delightful read. Check it out on pages 12 to 19. Readers loved Brehm’s previous bestselling anthology, The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy, and in this latest book, Brehm demonstrates the practice of mindfully entering a poem with an alertness, curiosity, and open-hearted responsiveness very much like the attention we cultivate in meditation. You can also listen to the episode of the Wisdom Podcast in which I interviewed John Brehm at wisdomexperience.org/ podcasts/.

As we continue to navigate this challenging and unpredictable year, I hope that our Wisdom Journal, books, online courses, and other resources provide some comfort and inspiration to help deepen your practice and knowledge.

We are grateful for all your continued support. May you remain safe and well.

J O U R N A L

Dear Wisdom Friends,

to a short text written by Bokar Rinpoche, which is itself a concise summary of the ninth Gyalwa Karmapa Wangchuk Dorjé’s Ocean of Definitive Meaning. We’ve selected to share an excerpt on the general presentation of śamatha with you on pages 20 to 25.

W I S D O M

F R O M T H E P U B L I S H E R

A S C O M PA S S I O N A L O N E I S A C C E P T E D T O B E THE SEED OF THE PERFECT HARVEST OF BUDDHAHOOD, T H E W AT E R T H AT N O U R I S H E S I T, A N D T H E F R U I T

T H AT I S L O N G A S O U R C E O F E N J O Y M E N T,

I W I L L P R A I S E C O M PA S S I O N AT T H E S TA R T O F A L L . 1 . 2

F I R S T, W I T H T H E T H O U G H T “ I A M , ” T H E Y C L I N G T O A S E L F ; T H E N , W I T H T H E T H O U G H T “ M I N E , ” T H E Y B E C O M E

AT TA C H E D T O T H I N G S ;

L I K E B U C K E T S O N A W AT E R W H E E L , T H E Y T U R N

WITHOUT CONTROL;

I B O W T O T H E C O M PA S S I O N T H AT C A R E S F O R S U C H

SUFFERING BEINGS. 1.3

BEINGS ARE LIKE REFLECTIONS OF THE MOON IN

R I P P L I N G W AT E R ;

SEEING THEM AS FLEETING AND AS DEVOID OF

I N T R I N S I C N AT U R E ,

T H E B O D H I S AT T VA’ S M I N D FA L L S U N D E R

C O M PA S S I O N ’ S S W AY,

Y E A R N I N G T O S E T F R E E E V E R Y T R A N S M I G R AT I N G

BEING. 1.4

— C A N D R A K Ī RT I

Daniel Aitken CEO/Publisher Wisdom Publications

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