Śākya Chokden was one of the most important thinkers of the Sakya tradition. His teachers were Rongtön Sheja Kunrik, Dönyo Pelwa and Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo. A thinker who accepted both the rangtong and zhentong, or "self-empty" and "other empty" views of Madhyamaka, Śākya Chokden's seat was at Serdokchen Monastery near Shigatse in Tsang. Influential and controversial in his own day, his writings fell out of favor over time and many were banned in the seventeenth century. ... read more at
Sakya - The Sakya tradition developed in the eleventh century in the Khön family of Tsang, which maintained an imperial-era lineage of Vajrakīla and which adopted a new teaching from India known as Lamdre. Tib ས་སྐྱ་
Gzhan stong - The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature. Tib གཞན་སྟོང་
Madhyamaka - Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Skt मध्यमक Tib དབུ་མ་ Ch 中觀見
