Bodong Tradition
Excerpt from Sarah Harding's Four Tibetan Lineages: Core Teachings of Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyü, and Bodong. Library of Tibetan Classics 8. Wisdom Publications, 2021, pages 18-20.
Bodong Tradition[edit]
The Bodong tradition generally refers to the vast body of literature and activity stemming from Bodong Panchen Choklé Namgyal (1375/76-1451), "The Great Scholar of Bodong, Victorious in All Directions,” although the origins may be traced back at least to Kodrakpa Sönam Gyaltsen (1181—1261 or 1170-1249). Choklé Namgyal was a spiritual savant and prolific scholar from Porong in western Tibet who produced 137 volumes containing nearly one thousand texts on almost all areas of Indo-Tibetan knowledge.[1] He reportedly kept as many as twenty scribes occupied at once as he simultaneously recited passages on distinct topics to each of them while circumambulating a stūpa.”[2] He became abbot of the well-established Bodong É Monastery, from which the tradition gets its name and which was its locus. He attracted a large following that included the local princess Chökyi Drönma (1422-55/6), whom he identified as an emanation of the deity Dorjé Phakmo (Vajravārāhī). Thus began the most important female incarnation lineage in Tibet that has lasted to the present day.[3] But the Bodong tradition itself did not fare so well after its initial flourishing. This has been attributed to the growing popularity and competition for resources of his contemporary Jé Tsongkhapa’s tradition and the geopolitical events surrounding the Gelukpa and Kagyü developments in central and western Tibet. In particular, it seems that eventually in the mid-seventeenth century, during the ascendency of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, the name Bodong Choldé Namgyal was conflated with a certain Jonang Choklé Namgyal (1308-86) and thus associated with the so-called extrinsic emptiness theory (gzhan stong) so unpopular with the Gelukpas and the Great Fifth himself.[4] The end result was that as many as thirteen monasteries following the Bodong system were converted to Gelukpa monasteries, the same fate as many Jonang monasteries. The good news, however, is that in recent years there seems to have been some revival.[5]
The three texts presented in this volume are not in Choklé Namgyal’s massive collected works but represent the Bodong mahāmudrā tradition as received or reworked by Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo, signing as Mañjughoṣa. Essence of Elixir, Advice from the Adepts (chapter 22) actually contains the instructions for two traditions of mahāmudrā practice. The first is called the mahāmudrā of profundity and clarity, drawn from the completion phase of Guhyasamāja Mañjuvajra. According to Khyentsé, this tantric tradition came to Choklé Namgyal via two successions. The long lineage originated with the Buddha Mañjuvajra and passed through several Indian masters including Jnänapäda, entering Tibet as the Jñānapāda system of the Guhyasamāja Tantra. The direct lineage occurred in Choklé Namgyal’s visionary experience of the adept Virūpa. There are at least six texts on Guhyasamāja Mañjuvajra in Bodongpa’s collected works (vols. 67-68) that could be a source for this teaching.
The second tradition is called the mahāmudrā of applied coemergence, described as being the essence of the path of united sutra and mantra. This tradition from the Buddha Vajradhara passed through the early Kagyü adepts, thence through the Drukpa lineage and to the famous master Thokmé Sangpo (1195-1371), who was also an abbot of Bodong É Monastery. From him it continued until Choklé Namgyal. A thirteen-folia text bearing the name Guidance on the Mahāmudrā of Applied Coemergence in Bodong’s collected works (volume 80) may be an antecedent. But this particular mahāmudrā genre of applied coemergence (lhan gcig skyes sbyor; sahajayoga) is very familiar in the Kagyü school, particularly based on the teachings of Gampopa Sönam Rinchen. This text follows the classical sequence of instruction on preliminaries, calm abiding (zhi gnas; śamatha), higher insight (lhag mthong; vipaśyana), and then their unity as mahāmudrā.[6]
Wangpo presents a liturgy for the preliminaries of both mahāmudrā traditions. This includes recitations and visualizations for going for refuge, arousing the awakening mind, purification through Vajrasattva practice, and guru yoga, with its mandala offering and lengthy supplication prayer to the lineage gurus, here primarily for that of applied coemergence. The succession corresponds to that in other sources, such as in Kongtrul’s Catalog, only as far as Bodong Choklé Namgyal. After him, the succession of both the long and direct lineage down to Khyentsé Wangpo himself appears to be somewhat different, though this may be due to variations in their names, epithets, and locations. The guru yoga concludes with the taking of empowerments.
As an addendum, A Gift of Timeless Awareness in chapter 13 contains the supplication to the long lineage of the mahāmudrā of profundity and clarity. It seems likely that these two liturgical texts are meant to be recited together in order to provide a ritual structure in which to experience the mahāmudrā meditations described in Essence of Elixir, Advice from, the Adepts. Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo’s compositions provide a glimpse into the treasury of Bodongpa’s work that will hopefully be explored more fully, and implemented, in the future.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ Compendium of Suchness: Collected Works of Bodong Chokley Namgyal, published by Tibet House as Encyclopedia Tibetica, 1969-81.
- ↑ Maher, "Revival and Renewal,” 106.
- ↑ For the full story, see Diemberger, When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty.
- ↑ Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 179-81.
- ↑ See Maher, "Revival and Renewal,” 110-17.
- ↑ A note on the translation. Lhan grig skyes literally means arising together or simultaneously and could also be thought of as innate or connate. Arising together implies at least two things and is generally glossed in mahāmudrā teachings as conceptual thoughts or afflictions being not truly separate from awareness (lhan gcig skyes pa’i ye shes). The last word sbyor ba, though a translation of Sanskrit yoga (rnal ’byor), is the active tense of a verb. So the meaning here seems to be that "one applies oneself to” or "practices with” or "yokes to” this experience of coemergence. Thanks to Peter Alan Roberts for clarifications. His translation is "innate union;” Richard Barron’s is "merging with the innate state of mahāmudrā.” In Kongtrul’s Catalog, he quotes Gampopa: "The triad of mind, concepts, and dharmakāya emerged together at the outset. Since the instructions join/apply them as one, shouldn’t one say joined/applied coemergence? ”Jamgön Kongtrul, Catalog, 67. DNZ, 18:431.
