Bodhicaryāvatāra and Tibetan Mind Training (Lojong)

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Bodhicaryāvatāra and Tibetan Mind Training (Lojong)
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Mind Training


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Thupten Jinpa
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Columbia University Press
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  • Meditation - Buddhist Practice
  • Textual Studies

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All Tibetan sources agree that Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryāvatāra, hereafter Guide), one of the most celebrated Indian Buddhist texts, constitutes a principal origin for the Tibetan mind training or lojong tradition. Mind training refers to a specific genre of instructions and their associated spiritual exercises, which include, among others, the famed practice of tonglen, "giving and taking," and traces its immediate origin to the legacy of the Indian Bengali teacher Atiśa, who came to Tibet in the middle of the eleventh century. As in the Guide, the central concern of lojong is to cultivate Mahāyāna Buddhism's highest spiritual ideal of bodhicitta (the altruistic intention to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings) and to live one's life in accord with that aspiration. The Tibetan term for mind training, lojong, is composed of two syllables, with lo standing for "mind," "thought," or "attitudes," while jong connotes "to purify, cleanse, refine, exercise, or train" (as in sports training). Associated, originally, with the Kadam School of Atiśa (982-1054) and his principal Tibetan disciple Dromtönpa (1005-64), over time, the lojong tradition became part of the common heritage of all Tibetan schools.
      Today, as Tibetan Buddhism becomes more widely accessible to the world outside Tibet, it is often the lojong instructions that the Tibetan teachers share first with their new audiences. For example, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke to a crowd of nearly a hundred thousand in New York's Central Park in 1999, he chose the "Eight Verses on Mind Training" as the basis of his talk. When the Dalai Lama returned to speak once more in Central Park in 2002, he chose as the topic for his talk Atiśa's "Bodhisattva's Jewel Garland," an important source text for lojong.
      On the surface, the relationship between the Guide and Tibetan mind training appears fairly straightforward. First and foremost, there seems to be a direct link, if not an equivalence, between the exchanging of self and others as outlined in chapter 8 of the Guide and lojong's "giving and taking" (tonglen) meditation, which involves imaginatively taking on others' suffering, misfortune, and negative karma and giving to others one's happiness, good fortune, and positive karma. Second, the Guide is listed as one of the "six treatises of Kadam," which also include Śāntideva's Compendium of Training.[1] Third, most lojong texts, especially since the appearance of Chekawa's "Seven-Point Mind Training" in the twelfth century, seem to contain disproportionately high numbers of citations from the Guide. Fourth, Atiśa's explicit acknowledgment of Serlingpa (literally, "the one from the Island of Sumatra") as the principal source for his instruction on generating bodhicitta, combined with the fact that Serlingpa's approach is thought to emphasize the exchanging of self and others, suggest the Guide to be the direct source of lojong's approach to cultivating bodhicitta.[2] Finally, it cannot be a matter of pure coincidence that most Tibetan masters who have been Guide enthusiasts were also great advocates of lojong. This is true from the earliest Tibetan lojong teachers, especially Langri Thangpa (1054-1123) and Chekawa (1101-75), to Ngulchu Thokmé Sangpo (1297-1371) and Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), and from Yongzin Yeshé Gyaltsen in the eighteenth century to Dza Paltrül in the nineteenth century.
      That said, a closer examination reveals that the actual relationship between the Guide and lojong is far more complex. In what follows I shall examine this important question so we might appreciate more accurately how the Guide may have shaped the development of this unique Tibetan tradition. My chapter is divided into four sections. Part 1 presents a brief outline of the key features of lojong so that its unique characteristics—terminology, outlook, and approach, as well as its spiritual exercises—can be recognized. Then, part 2 sketches a broad outline of the central theme of the Guide with specific focus on the unique practice of equalizing and exchanging of self and others as found in its eighth chapter. In part 3 I then correlate the Guide with lojong and trace the Indian sources, especially in Śāntideva, for the specific features of lojong and practice. Finally, in part 4, I conclude with some general observations on the place of the Guide in today's pluralistic world, and how it (and by extension Tibetan mind training) could play an influential role in the growing emergence of Buddhist-derived contemplative practices in the shared public domain, especially in the West. (Jinpa, preliminary remarks, 146–48)

Notes
  1. For a succinct explanation of the rationale for the choice of these six texts and how they are grouped into three sets of two, including their specific roles in the development of the practitioner on the path, see Kapstein, "Stoics and Bodhisattvas," 102 and note 3.
  2. On Serlingpa (Dharmakīrti) and Atiśa's relationship with him, including the legend of the latter's travel to the island of Sumatra to receive bodhicitta instructions from Serlingpa, see Shonu and Gyaltsen, eds., Mind Training, introduction as well as "The Story of Atiśa's Voyage to Sumatra," 57-70. On the identity of Serlingpa, see Chattopadaya, Atiśa in Tibet, 84-95.
Citation
Jinpa, Thupten. "Bodhicaryāvatāra and Tibetan Mind Training (Lojong)." In Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, edited by Jonathan C. Gold and Douglas S. Duckworth, 146–61. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
Interconnections
Works related to this item
1 Chapter or part of
Gold, Jonathan C., and Douglas S. Duckworth, eds. Readings of Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
Books2019About this item
This book serves as a companion to the Bodhicaryāvatāra. The fifteen essays contained here illuminate the Guide's many philosophical, literary, ritual, and ethical dimensions.
1 Scholarship on
Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.
Classical WorksAbout this item
An "Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice," the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is a poem about the path of a bodhisattva, in ten chapters, written by the Indian Buddhist Śāntideva (fl. c. 685–763). One of the masterpieces of world literature, it is a core text of Mahāyāna Buddhism and continues to be taught, studied, and commented upon in many languages and by many traditions around the world. The main subject of the text is bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment, and the path and practices of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (pāramitās). The text forms the basis of many contemporary discussions of Buddhist ethics and philosophy.



Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.

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Gtong len - A contemplative practice, particularly in the Tibetan tradition, where one visualizes taking on the suffering and negative actions of others and giving them one's own happiness, well-being, and merit. It is performed to enhance compassion (karuṇā) and develop the ultimate aspiration of bodhicitta. Tib གཏོང་ལེན་  

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Gtong len - A contemplative practice, particularly in the Tibetan tradition, where one visualizes taking on the suffering and negative actions of others and giving them one's own happiness, well-being, and merit. It is performed to enhance compassion (karuṇā) and develop the ultimate aspiration of bodhicitta. Tib གཏོང་ལེན་  

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of the Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt महायान  Tib ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ།  Ch 大乘  

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Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

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Kadam - The Kadam tradition, which traces its origin to the teachings of Atiśa, was the first of the so-called New Schools of Tibetan Buddhism, traditions which arose during or after the Second Propagation of Buddhism (phyi dar) in the tenth century. Tib བཀའ་གདམས་  

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Śrāvaka - The disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain individual liberation or nirvāṇa. The final goal of the Hearers is to become an arhat, a state in which one has totally eliminated the inner problems of attachment, hatred and ignorance, the main causes for rebirth in this cycle of existence. There are four stages of a śrāvaka path including eight phases. Skt श्रावक  Tib ཉན་ཐོས།  Ch 聲聞  

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattvas'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Pāramitā - The six or ten types of practices which lead an individual to Buddhahood. The practice of perfections is particularly important in Mahāyāna Buddhism in which the entire path of the Bodhisattva to reach full enlightenment is included in the six or ten perfections. The six perfections are that of giving, of discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The perfection of skill-in-means, aspirations, power, and pristine wisdom are added to them to make ten perfections. Skt पारमिता  Tib ཕར་ཕྱིན།;ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ།  Ch 波羅蜜  

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Pāramitā - The six or ten types of practices which lead an individual to Buddhahood. The practice of perfections is particularly important in Mahāyāna Buddhism in which the entire path of the Bodhisattva to reach full enlightenment is included in the six or ten perfections. The six perfections are that of giving, of discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The perfection of skill-in-means, aspirations, power, and pristine wisdom are added to them to make ten perfections. Skt पारमिता  Tib ཕར་ཕྱིན།;ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ།  Ch 波羅蜜  

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Ātman - Though it can simply be used as the expression "I" or "me", in Indian thought the notion of self refers to a permanent, unchanging entity, such as that which passes from life to life in the case of people, or the innate essence (svabhāva) of phenomena. Skt आत्मन्  Tib བདག་  Ch 我;灵魂  

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