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Fierce Devotion to all Beings: The Role of Emotions in Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryāvatāra) +
An attempt to compare the notion of emotion and practices of devotion in the Middle Ages first of all raises the question of what the Middle Ages might mean for India. According to some historians, the time between the fall of the powerful Gupta empire in the 7th century and the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in the 12th century is referred to as Middle Ages, but also India’s Classical Period.[1] A time of competing, smaller kingdoms and regular military confrontations, it was also a period of great cultural and economic exchange that lead to an important accumulation of wealth. Buddhists traditionally relied on state support, because the monastic code forbid monks to work. During the Middle Ages, Buddhism seems to have retreated more and more into prestigious elite monastic institutions, while at the same time, it had ceded its place as dominant folk religion to Hinduism. One of these monastic universities located in Northwest India was Nālandā. This institution, the ruins of which attest to its former greatness, was well-known for having brought forth important thinkers of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, among them the 8th century Indian Buddhist master Śāntideva, whose ideas are at the centre of this article.
<h5>Notes</h5>
#Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, ''A History of India'', 5th ed. (London; New York: Routledge, 2010). +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
With its roots in the rich Indian tradition of religio-philosophical disputation, the phenomenon of debating in Tibet is an integral element of monastic scholarship as it developed on the plateau. In the course of monastic education specific types of debates are utilised as a heuristic method to facilitate a student’s entrance into the intricacies of Buddhist doctrine.[2] Beyond the frame of everyday monastic courtyard debating, debates between different factions and schools serve not only as a pedagogical means, but often exhibit a more antagonistic nature. While Tibetan history is full of accounts of—at times very fierce—personal disputations, there are no records informing us about the exact development of these. As opponents were not always proximate in terms of space and time, debates also materialised in the form of polemical texts, composed to refute a (living or dead) opponent. These texts came to form an independent genre of Tibetan literature.[3] It is in texts of this genre where we
find recorded not only rather eristic forms of criticism, but also the expression of views that contributed to and reflected the most fundamental doctrinal differences that evolved in the different religio-philosophical traditions.[4]<br> In this paper, I intend to give a few glimpses into one specific controversy, a series of debates that originated towards the end of the nineteenth century subsequent to the composition of 'Ju Mipham's ''Nor bu ke ta ka''. Providing a comprehensive picture of these debates is not only very difficult in general, but virtually impossible in the frame of a short article. I will therefore limit my focus to the discussion of a single concept, the doctrine of
''satyadvaya''.[5]
<h5>Notes</h5>
# (This note is attached to the article title) This article is the substantially revised and enlarged version of a paper titled "Die Lehre von satyadvaya in 'Ju Mi phams' ''Nor bu ke ta ka''" that was presented at the Conference of German Orientalists (Deutscher Orientalistentag) in Freiburg in September 2007 and published in 2009 (Viehbeck 2009). I would like to thank Helmut Tauscher, Anne MacDonald, Dorji Wangchuk, Birgit Kellner, Patrick McAllister, and Susanne Kimm for their numerous comments and corrections. The research for this article was conducted within the project "Tibetan Madhyamaka Exegesis: Later Developments" (project P19597), headed by Helmut Tauscher and funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The final version of this article was completed within the project "Reasoning in South Asian and Tibetan Buddhism" under the leadership of Birgit Kellner, as part of the Cluster of Excellence" Asia and Europe in a Global Context," Heidelberg University.
# See Dreyfus 2003b for a detailed description of the role of debate in the monastic education system.
# Lopez 1996 gives a short description of 'polemics' as a literary genre. A more extensive discussion is found in Cabezón & Dargyay 2007: 11 ff.,together with a sketch of the history of polemical literature (pp. 18 ff.).
# As Cabezón has pointed out, studying polemical texts can therefore lead to a fuller picture of the richness and variegation of Tibetan scholastic culture, which can be easily overlooked when dealing with self-contained depictions of Buddhist doctrine by individual authors; cf. Cabezón 1995: 645 ff.
# It should be noted that the present article, concerned only with a single concept and focussed more on the starting point of the debates, the ''Nor bu ke ta ka'', is preliminary, and that some of its assessments are tentative. More details of these debates, in particular within the controversy between 'Ju Mipham and Dpa' ris Rab gsal, are discussed in my Ph.D. thesis, see Viehbeck 2012.
Finding God in the Bodhicaryāvatāra: An Interim-Report on a 'Christian Commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra' +
The Bodhicaryāvatāra, an Indian Mahāyāna-Buddhist scripture from the 7/8th century, is a classical introduction to the Bodhisattva ideal, written from a Madhyamaka perspective. It has become particular popular in Tibetan Buddhism and is currently among the most frequently translated Buddhist texts ever. The essay presents an interim report about “work in progress”, i.e. about a new commentary to the Bodhicaryāvatāra written from a Christian perspective. After dealing briefly with the hermeneutical problems involved in writing trans-religious scriptural commentaries, the essays pursues the question of whether a Christian may discover some form of knowledge of God in this text despite its explicit rejection of theistic beliefs. Applying the method of “reciprocal illumination” the essay first identifies four principal modes of knowing God according to the Christian tradition (through love, through revelation, through longing for happiness and through the awareness of the ultimately mysterious nature of reality), which are then related to spiritual and philosophical insights expressed in the Bodhicaryāvatāra. This does not only support an affirmative answer to the leading question, but suggests that the Bodhicaryāvatāra can even deepen the understanding of how these four modes are interrelated. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
It has been long demonstrated that a number of Mahāyāna ''sūtra'' are preserved in two or more recensions. Chinese translations of Mahāyāna ''sūtra'' in some cases record a succession of recensions of an individual text The diversity of the ''Prajñāpāramitā'' corpus is especially well known through the work of Conze on the whole body, that of Lancaster on the ''Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā'', and Lethcoe on the ''Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā''.[1] We need only look to the work of Bechert, Regamey, and von Hinüber, concerning the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra'', the ''Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra'' and the ''Saṅghāṭasūtra'' respectively, for discussions of distinct recensions of individual titles that are witnessed directly in the Sanskrit language.[2] Especially in the last of these three cases, the manuscripts from the Gilgit collection have played a crucial part in uncovering this textual diversity – the eight mss. that we possess of the ''Saṅghāṭasūtra'', recording distinct recensions, were all recovered from Gilgit.[3]<br> The ''Samādhirājasūtra'', as it is commonly called in modem scholarship (hereafter ''SRS''<sup>4</sup>), is a large Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture. It is a miscellaneous and probably composite work that bears certain affinities with the ''Prajñāpāramitā'' literature and other early Mahāyāna scriptures. It is known to modem scholarship through the pioneering edition of the complete text by Dutt, [5] and the re-edition, based on Dutt's, by Vaidya.[6] These two editions present us with a work that consists of some 40 chapters, although the text is found in manuscript sources in 40 chapters in an important group of Nepalese mss.,[7] 42 chapters in another important group of Nepalese mss. and a very different arrangement of at least 42 chapters in the Gilgit ms., 39 chapters in the Tibetan translation, and with no chapter divisions at all in the Chinese translation of Narendrayaśas. Whlle Dutt's edition purports to present the text of the Gilgit ms., he also records for us passages which only occur in the Nepalese mss. and Tibetan translation.[8] To confuse matters more, this text goes under at least four names: the colophons of the Nepalese manuscripts give us ''samādhirājaṃ nāma mahayānasūtram'', but in various medieval Indian treatises it is referred to as the ''Candrapradīpa'', the ''Candrapradīpasamādhi'' and also as the ''Mahākaruṇāvatāra''.<br> It is the purpose of the present article to clarify the number and nature of distinct recensions of our text and to co-ordinate these conclusions, so far as seems possible, with the known titles.[9] To avoid ambiguity, in the following discussion I shall take the term recension to refer to a consciously rewritten version of a text. In other words, I understand a recension to be a distinct version of a text intentionally produced by an editor or redactor, thus excluding by my definition variations produced by the many accidental changes wrought over centuries by scribal error of one kind or another. Of course, it remains the case that even the accidental variants that modify and disfigure so many manuscripts of texts in this genre (primarily mss. from Nepal) can in tum become a part of the transmissional history of a given text, so that they too are, as Regamey puts it, 'an historical actuality', [10]
<h5>Notes</h5>
#E. Conze. ''The Prajñāpāramitā Literature'', 's Gravenhage (1960): L. Lancaster, 'An Analysis of the Aṣṭasāhasrika Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra', dissertation, Madison (1968); N. Lethcoe, 'Some Notes on the Relationship between the ''Abhisamāyalaṅkāra'', the Revised ''Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā'', and the Chinese Translations of the Unrevised ''Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā''<i>'</i>, ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 96 (1976) pp. 499-511.
#H. Bechert, 'Remarks on the Textual History of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka' in ''Studies in lndo-Asian Art and Culture'', vol. 2 (= ''Acharya Raghu Vira Commemoration Volume'', ''Śata-piṭaka'', 96), New Delhi 1973, pp. 21-27; C. Regamey, 'Randbemerkungen zur Sprache und Textüberlieferung des Kāraṇḍavyūha' in ''ASIATICA''. ''Festschrift Friedrich Weller'', Leipzig 1954, pp. 514-527; O. von Hinüber 'Buddhism in Gilgit Between India and Central Asia', in ''The Countries of South Asia: Boundaries, Extensions, and lnterrelations''. ed. P. Gaeffke and D. A. Utz, Philadelphia 1988, pp. 40-48. On the ''Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra'', more recently, A. Mette, ''Die Gilgitfragmente des Kāraṇḍavyūha'', Swisttal-Odendorf 1997.
#von Hinüber. ''op. cit.'' It is regrettable that the edition of this text promised here has not and apparently will not see the light of day.
#l use this qualified abbreviation (''SRS'') throughout, without reference to any specific recension, but when as SRS l or SRS Il, l use it to refer to two specific recensions which I shall define in this article.
#N. Dutt and V.S.N. Sharma eds., ''Gilgit Manuscripts''. ''vol. II'', part 1 Shrinagar 1941, parts 2-3 Calcutta 1953 and 1954. This was predated by the 'edition' of Das and Vidyābhūshan, 1896, which is, however, a mere transcription of chapters 1-12 and 15-19 of a single highly faulty Nepalese ms. held in Calcutta by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The omitted chapters represent a ''lacunae'' in the exemplar from which this ms. was itself copied, and since the editors did not understand this, the chapters of the printed text are numbered consecutively 1-17.
#P.L. Vaidya. ''Samādhirājasūtra'', Darbbanga (1961). For ease of reference, I follow the chapter divisions and numbering of the printed editions of Dutt and Vaidya.
#ms. groups ABC. See below.
#The shortcomings of Dutt's editions are well known and will not be rehearsed here. For a detailed demonstration of the unreliability of Dutt's work, see G. Schopen, 'Sukhāvatī as a Generalised Religious Goal in Sanskrit Mahāyāna Sūtra Literature', ''Indo-Iranian Journal'' 19 (1977) pp. 177-210; Appendix III. 'Dutt's edition of the ''Bhaiṣajyaguru-Sūtra'; and L. Gomez and A. Silk, eds., ''Studies in the Literature of the Great Vehicle -Three Mahayana Buddhist Texts'', Ann Arbor 1989, pp. 41–42, for comments on his edition of the ''SRS''. On the Gilgit ms. itself, see A. Skilton, 'The Gilgit manuscript of the ''Samādhirāja Sūtra''<i>'</i>, forthcoming.
#The chapter divisions and chapter titles are addressed in A. Skilton, 'The Chapter Divisions and Titles of the ''Samādhirāja Sūtra''<i>'</i>, forthcoming.
#"Man kann natürlich erwidern, dass die typischen Sanskritisierungsfehler auch eine historische Tatsache sind." Regamey ''op. cit''., p. 515. Quite where this leaves the critical editor is, of course, a matter of some debate.
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
Is there such a thing as free will in Buddhism? Do moral and mental forms of cultivation at the heart of Buddhist practice imply some notion of agency and responsibility? And if they do, how are we to think of those individuals who embark on the path to liberation or enlightenment, considering that all Buddhists give universal scope to the no-self doctrine? Of course, Buddhism is not alone among the world’s great philosophical traditions in providing ample testimony for the possibility of cultivating to a high degree such cardinal virtues as nonviolence, wisdom, compassion, and a general spirit of tolerance. But it is unique among them in articulating a theory of action that, it seems, dispenses altogether with the notion of agent causation. Buddhists pursue what are unmistakably moral ends, but there is no stable self or agent who bears the accumulated responsibility for initiating those pursuits, and seemingly no normative framework against which some dispositions, thoughts, and actions are deemed felicitous, and thus worthy of cultivation, while others are not so deemed. It is not surprising, therefore, to find a near universal lack of agreement among contemporary interpreters about how best to capture the scope of Buddhist ethics using the vocabulary and theoretical frameworks of Western ethical discourse.<br> In seeking an answer to the questions above, the plan, then, is first to show that despite some straightforward metaphysical tenets, the conception of agency in Buddhism is less alien than it may seem at first blush—indeed, it is not unlike conceptions of moral agency that we find in Stoic thought, and more recently in Nietzsche (2006) and several strands of contemporary moral phenomenology; next, to argue for a solution to what is widely regarded as a clear conflict between traditional conceptions of moral agency and the agent-neutral metaphysical picture of causality that we glean from Abhidharma literature. Recent accounts (Flanagan 2002; Meyers 2014; Siderits 1987, 2008) seek to resolve this conflict by arguing that the two pictures are compatible because the discourse of 'persons' and the discourse of 'causes' belong in two distinct and incommensurable domains. Specifically, my claim is that compatibilist solutions compromise the traditional notion of moral responsibility and render ethical conduct indistinguishable from merely pragmatic acts. The main thrust of the compatibilist move is against the notion of agent causation itself, which social and cognitive psychology has presumably rendered incoherent.[1] It is only to the extent that we dispense with such incoherent concepts—as compatibilist interpreters of Buddhist action theory argue—that some notion of moral agency and responsibility can be salvaged.<br> Despite the dominant and paradoxical image of the selfess Mahāyāna (later Buddhist) bodhisattva (one who has taken the altruistic vow) tirelessly, yet effortlessly, working to put an end to ultimately non-existent human suffering (on account of the non-existence of sentient beings as conventionally established), support for a robust notion of phenomenal agency can be found in nearly all major schools of Buddhist thought.[2] Indeed, the Eightfold Path program, much like the promulgation of monastic rules of conduct (the Vinaya), comes in recognition of the complex range of personal and subpersonal factors that are constitutive of human agency. Because mental states such as greed, hatred, and delusion or, alternatively, loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy, can only be made sense of with reference to the person whose states they are, they are irreducibly phenomenal: they only exist first-personally. The impersonal description thesis at the heart of Abhidharma Reductionism (cf. Abelson, Ch. 13, this volume) may allow for the analysis of mental states in terms of their constitutive factors, but for these states to be analyzable at all, and for the attribution of moral responsibility and freedom to be intelligible, there needs to be a conception of first-personal agency in place. On the view I defend here, mental states are irreducibly first-personal: the idea of generic pain apart from individually realized sensations of burning, itching, or stinging is thus deeply incoherent.<br> In what follows, I argue that influential Mahāyāna ethicists, such as Śāntideva, who allow for moral rules to be proscribed under the expediency of a compassionate aim, seriously compromise the very notion of responsibility. Moral responsibility is intelligible only in relation to conceptions of freedom and human dignity that reflect a participation in, and sharing of, interpersonal relationships. As critics of hard determinism (the view that universal causal necessitation is incompatible with free will and moral agency) have argued, there is no threat to human agency so long as we understand that agency is essentially grounded in a range of participant reactive attitudes and feelings (e.g., resentment, gratitude, anger, etc.) that are impossible without the ascription of agency and moral responsibility (see Strawson 1973, p. 11, and discussion in Goodman 2009, pp. 147ff.). But bodhisattvas cannot be seen to harbor such participant reactive attitudes, at least not once they are sufficiently advanced on the path to understand that no beings exist whatsoever as ordinarily conceived. For compatibilists, thus, the extraordinarily demanding bodhisattva ideal—informed, as it is, by a steadfast commitment to forego the body, its enjoyments, and all virtue for the sake of accomplishing the welfare of all sentient beings—makes a compelling case for allowing special dispensation. On an agent-neutral consequentialist interpretation of the Mahāyāna ethical project, we must grant the Buddhist saint dispensation for the unfathomable and mysterious ways in which utterly impersonal psychophysical aggregates accomplish their aim, while the unenlightened must be content with merely following rules.<br> I do not dispute this claim. Nor do I disregard the importance of revising our traditional notions of agency and moral responsibility to accommodate new findings about the sociobiological roots of morality. Rather, I simply caution that such revisionary strategies, insofar as they seek to explain agency in event-causal terms, may well (if they have not done so already) set the stage for moral epiphenomenalism.[3] Indeed, on the view I defend here, an effective compatibilist solution to the problem of reconciling freedom of the will and determinism depends on expanding, rather than eliminating, the complex register of factors that underpin the experiential aspects of our moral life. In short, although social and cognitive psychology has significantly augmented our ''knowledge'' of agency, there is a widespread sense that mapping out human action in impersonal terms—a project of significant affinity to Abhidharma—has advanced only marginally our ''understanding'' of agency, of ''what it is like'' to show responsiveness to norms, reasons, and principles. (Coseru, introduction, 92–94)
<h5>Notes</h5>
#See Caruso (2012), Smart (2006), and Wegner (2002) for various attempts to prove the illusory nature of experiences of mental causation. While not conclusive, Nahmias ''et al''. (2004) review experimental data that seems to favor compatibilist over incompatibilist accounts of free will.
#Despite the taboo on speaking about 'the self,' psychological and moral attitudes form an integral part of the Buddhist tradition (see Collins 1982, Ch. 6). Also, despite the dominance of the ultraminimalist account of agency developed in the Abhidharma, there are good and compelling reasons to give 'Buddhist personalists' (pudgalavādins) credit for insisting that important features of personhood are ineliminable (see Carpenter 2015; Priestley 1999).
#The problem with event-causal theories of action is their failure to capture agency altogether, instead reducing it merely to things that happen to us. On this model, there are pushes and pulls but no one does anything ever. This is the so-called problem of the 'disappearing agent' (see Mele 2003, Ch. 10; Lowe 2008, pp. 159ff.; Steward 2013).
When the Buddha taught us to abstain from taking life, he didn’t make an exception for animals we like to eat. While many Buddhists eat meat, Bob Isaacson of Dharma Voices for Animals argues they shouldn't. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
Is emptiness compatible with ethics? This fundamental question has been a major concern of Buddhist scholars in the Madhyamaka tradition throughout that tradition's history in India, Tibet, and elsewhere in Asia. And the same question faces us today. The profound teaching of emptiness subtly undermines all our dogmatic convictions and beliefs, and points toward a compelling realization of the core Buddhist ideal of "freedom from view." But if we are to realize such an ideal, what will happen to our ethical commitments? Is there a danger that following the path that leads to seeing the ultimate truth will have the side effect of turning the practitioner into a monster?<br> These issues face anyone with any moral commitments who is attracted to the Madhyamaka view. But they seem particularly pressing for those scholars who interpret Buddhist ethical views as forms of consequentialism. Even if it is possible to reconcile compassionate action and nonviolent lives with emptiness, we may still have difficulty building consequentialist ethical theories on the empty space that is the only foundation Madhyamaka allows.<br> One way to put the problem starts with noticing that, in Buddhism, there are only two kinds of truth: ultimate and conventional. And it is clear that, according to Madhyamaka, ethical statements cannot possibly be ultimately true. So they must be merely conventional. What, then, does it mean to say that ethics is merely conventional? It sounds like we would be saying that ethics is a social construct within each particular society, with no basis at all outside the contingent practices and customs of that society. Such a claim leaves us with a variety of extremely unattractive metaethical options, including moral relativism, ethnocentric conservatism, and error theory. And none of these options fits well at all with any universal ethical theory that aspires to provide normative guidance, however general and abstract, across places and times.<br> Another concern would be that consequentialism is a grand theory that seeks to ground many diverse normative judgments and intuitions on a single underlying theoretical structure. On some ways of understanding Madhyamaka, this kind of high theory is precisely what we need to abandon. Such views could lead us to expect that the field of ethics may simply be too complex and messy to be brought into any unifying framework.<br> Yet another reason for concern is that recent work advocating a consequentialist interpretation of Buddhist ethics has rightly focused on Śāntideva's strategy of drawing on the doctrine of no self, in its Abhidharma form, to lend support to the universalism that is characteristic of consequentialist thinking, and to undermine intuitions about the significance of the distinction between persons. But the doctrine of no self in the Abhidharma relies on a postulated ontological asymmetry between ultimately real simple entities and conventionally posited, unreal people. If the existence of everything is in part constituted by conceptual construction, as the Madhyamaka argues, then no such asymmetry can be sustained, and we have to ask whether Śāntideva's strategy still has any viability. If not, it will be much harder to sustain any connection between Buddhist forms of life and consequentialist ethical theory.<br> This chapter will proceed on the basis of a particular philosophical reconstruction, in contemporary terms, of the Madhyamaka of the great Tibetan philosopher Tsong kha pa. (Goodman, preliminary remarks, 141–42)
From Sickness to Empathy: How Śāntideva and Jesus's Healing of the Man Blind from Birth Might Help Us Understand the Ongoing Pandemic +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
Scheduling booster shots this fall, my spouse and I have been recalling our initial doses of the vaccine. The stress of waking up in the middle of the night, the kindness of "vaccine angels" who had perfected CVS's systems, and the exuberance of having received that initial dose. The hope that followed that experience has been tempered, and at times turned to anger, as the Delta-variant took hold and inaugurated a second-wave of the pandemic, a fire fueled by the choice of many to remain unvaccinated. How much anger is justified toward those who declined the vaccine and gave the variant an opening? Two passages, one from the Christian Gospel of John and one from the Mahāyāna Buddhist ''Bodhicaryavatara'' may help temper my—and others'—anger and provide the resources for a different response. ([https://www.academia.edu/62644559/From_Sickness_to_Empathy_How_%C5%9A%C4%81ntideva_and_Jesuss_Healing_of_the_Man_Blind_from_Birth_Might_Help_Us_Understand_the_Ongoing_Pandemic Source Accessed Mar 1, 2022]) +
From Treatise to Tantra: The Pure Golden Ore (rDo la gser zhun) and the Tantra of Meditation on Bodhicitta (Byang chub sems bsgom pa'i rgyud) (Liljenberg 2018) +
This paper presents an examination, translation and edition of the ''Byang chub sems bsgom pa'i rgyud'', or ''Tantra of Meditation on Bodhicitta'', (hereafter SGG).[1]
This hitherto-unstudied early text of the Tibetan ''rDzogs chen'' tradition is found in at least three editions of the rNying ma Collected Tantras (''rNying ma'i rgyud 'bum'';
hereafter NGB).[2] +
From the Profound View of the Ultimate to Everyday Practice: Tokme Zangpo's Integration of Śāntideva's Teachings into Mind Training +
Gyalse Tokme Zangpo (1295-1369) created a distinctive synthesis of scholastic learning and contemplative practice that made advanced Mahāyāna teachings accessible to broader audiences. His most influential work, ''The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva'' (''Rgyal sras lag len so bdun ma''), represents a significant interpretive shift in transmitting mind training (''lojong'') teachings derived from Śāntideva's ''Bodhicaryāvatāra''.
''The Thirty-Seven Practices'' distills complex Mahāyāna concepts into practical guidance and has generated an extensive commentarial tradition spanning seven centuries across all major Tibetan Buddhist schools, continuing through contemporary teachers including the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. This enduring influence demonstrates how Tokme Zangpo's approach successfully bridged the gap between Śāntideva's profound philosophical insights and practical application for cultivating compassion and wisdom. +
In addition to previously known sources, newly identified materials preserving portions of Tibetan versions of the *''Kāśyapaparivarta'' are here introduced, chiefly from Dunhuang manuscripts Pelliot tibétain 678 and IOL Tib J 57. Part II of this paper continues with another new source, IOL Tib J 57, and a reconsideration of the previously noted IOL Tib J 152, Pelliot tibétain 671 and 672. +
Following on Part I of this paper, which introduced newly identified materials preserving portions of Tibetan versions of the *''Kāśyapaparivarta'', namely the Dunhuang manuscripts Pelliot tibétain 678 and IOL Tib J 57, Part II here continues with another new source, IOL Tib J 57, and a reconsideration of the previously noted IOL Tib J 152, Pelliot tibétain 671 and 672. +
G
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
It is natural to want to know a little about the author of a great work of literature, and a work of spirituality perhaps more than most others stimulates curiosity about what the author was really like, and the inner struggles which led to his or her profundity. We want to know of the author as an individual, and in this post-Freudian world perhaps we hope to see behind the wisdom to a tortured soul. Traditionally in India—and Tibet too, where Indian Buddhist ideals were and still are so important—this search for the individual apart from the profundity, this fascination for the psychological truth, the real spiritual agony, is rather alien, and psychological truth is thought to be a matter between the pupil and his or her spiritual master, not of concern to the public. Indian and Tibetan commentators sometimes recognize an interest in the life of an author, but his life story (the author is almost always male) is told in order to show his greatness, his almost superhuman miracles and spiritual attainments, to prove that his work and teaching can be trusted to lead to spiritual depths, and, of course, to justify the commentary. Thus we learn almost nothing about the author as a psychological individual, a real person. He is a type, an example of attainment, and his life a story of prediction, visions, triumphs, and magic. Learning, for such great examples, is straightforward and easy. There are no psychological torments, for most of the learning had been completed in previous lives and the torments, if there were any, overcome aeons ago. A recurrent theme in these life stories is how the author was taken by others to be a mere ordinary person before circumstances showed that actually, usually from a very early age if not from birth, he was a Great Being of wondrous attainment.<br> So it is with the traditional story of Śāntideva. Even the earliest version we possess is hundreds of years later than the life of its subject, and is already a completely legendary hagiography.[1] It is quite possible that the story involves an amalgamation of two different persons, and even the claim that Śāntideva was a prince from North India who fled royal consecration for fear of implication in the evils of kingship repeats a traditional Buddhist theme and has no independent corroboration. Śāntideva is generally thought to have flourished some time between 685 and 763 CE, although the reasoning behind this dating is by no means conclusive. It is as certain as it can be, however, that Śāntideva was a Buddhist monk, who followed the Mahāyāna form of Buddhism, and it is possible if we can follow the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' itself that Śāntideva was particularly devoted to Mañjuśrī (or Mañjughoṣa), a 'celestial' figure who in Mahāyāna Buddhism plays a role rather like a god—or patron saint—of wisdom.[2] Śāntideva is associated with the great
Buddhist monastery of Nalanda, the impressive ruins of which can still be seen in the state of Bihar in North India and bear fitting testimony to an enormous monastic university which was the pride of the Buddhist world, visited by scholar-monks and pilgrims from as far away as China. We know that Śāntideva was extremely learned. His other great work, the ''Śikṣā Samuccaya'', consists in the main of quotations from nearly a hundred Mahāyāna Buddhist scriptures (''sūtras''). Śāntideva must have had access to a large library—and used it. The ninth chapter of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'', the difficult chapter on Wisdom, is one of the principal sources for Mahāyāna philosophy, written in the form of a complex debate which must echo the debates which took place in the refined scholastic context of Nalanda university. (Williams, introduction, vii-viii)
<h5>Notes</h5>
#For a modern retelling, based on the standard Tibetan sources, see Lobsang N. Tsonawa (trans.), ''Indian Buddhist Pandits from 'The Jewel Garland of Buddhist History' ''(Dharamsala, 1985), 60–4.
#Although it should be noted that there is a problem as to how much of the present text of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' was contained in the original. The second, ninth, and tenth chapters have all had their detractors, and all the versions of Śāntideva's life mention disagreements as to the length of the work.
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
The enlightened attitude, bodhicitta, which has love and
compassion as its basis, is the essential seed producing the
attainment of buddhahood. Therefore, it is a subject that should be
approached with the pure thought, "May I gain enlightenment in
order to be of greatest benefit to the world."
If we want to attain the state of the full enlightenment of buddhahood as opposed to the lesser enlightenment of an arhat—nirvana,
or individual liberation—our innermost practice must be the cultivation of bodhicitta. If meditation on emptiness is our innermost
practice, we run the risk of falling into nirvana instead of gaining buddhahood. This teaching is given in the saying, "When the
father is bodhicitta and the mother is wisdom, the child joins the
caste of the buddhas." In ancient India, children of inter-caste marriages would adopt the caste of the father, regardless of the caste of
the mother. Therefore, bodhicitta is like the father: if we cultivate
bodhicitta, we enter the caste of the buddhas. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
The enlightened attitude, the bodhimind that has love and compassion as its
basis, is the essential seed producing the attainment of buddhahood. Therefore it
is a subject that should be approached with the pure thought, "May I thus gain
enlightenment in order to be of greatest benefit to the world."
However, there are but very small spiritual effects in hearing teachings on the
bodhimind if we lack a certain spiritual foundation. Consequently, most teachers
insist that disciples cultivate various preliminary practices within themselves before
approaching this higher precept. If we wish to go to university, we must first learn
to read and write. While merely hearing about meditation on love, compassion and
the bodhimind does leave a favorable imprint on our stream of consciousness, for
the teaching to produce a definite inner transformation we trainees should first
meditate extensively on the preliminaries (such as the preciousness of the human
opportunity, death and its significance, the nature of karma and samsara, refuge,
and the higher trainings in ethics, meditation and wisdom).
If we wish to attain the state of the full enlightenment of buddhahood
as opposed to the lesser enlightenment of arhantship, our innermost practice
must be cultivation of the bodhimind. Were we instead to make meditation on
emptiness our innermost practice, there would be the possibility of falling into the
arhant's nirvana instead of gaining buddhahood. This teaching is given in the
saying, "When the father is the bodhimind and the mother is wisdom, the child
joins the caste of buddhas." In intercaste marriages in ancient India, children
would adopt the caste of the father, regardless of whether the mother were of
higher or lower caste. Therefore the bodhimind is like the father: if one cultivates
the bodhimind, one enters the caste of buddhas. +
Gifts of the Goddess: Offerings of Dhāraṇī (Memory Enhancement), Mantras, and Tantric Invocation Rituals by Sarasvatī and Śrī in the Sutra of Golden Light +
The present study proposes that the goddesses Sarasvatī and Śrī appear in the ''Sutra of Golden Light'' (''Suvarṇaprabhāsottama sūtra'', 金光 明經, ca. early fifth century CE) as exemplars of the relationship of female deities to bodhisattvahood, ''dhāraṇī'' bestowal, and developments in deity invocation via mantra-based rituals. The goddesses demonstrate agency as Mahāyāna practitioners (i.e., bodhisattvas) who work on behalf of the Dharma and, specifically, the sutra itself. Nonetheless, Mahāyāna sutras are generally hesitant to name female practitioners as "bodhisattvas" explicitly. This paper therefore compares the level and type of aid that Sarasvatī and Śrī offer to devotees who uphold the text. From there, we can then begin to assess each goddess's soteriological status as implied bodhisattvas. What emerges is the goddesses' active participation and presence within a distinct ritual hierarchy, wherein they support and enhance the power of all buddhas and this revered text. Part one problematizes the scholarly assertion that ''dhāraṇī'' (''zŏnchí'' 總持) invokes female deities in the sutra. Scholars have often described ''dhāraṇī'' as synonymous with mantra, yet in this context ''dhāraṇī'' instead likely functions solely as the attainment of the superhuman power of memory for bodhisattva preachers (''dharmabhāṇaka''s). Thus, the development of ritual praxis in Mahāyāna contexts may be a more complex and nuanced process than scholars have previously indicated. Part two then highlights the use of mantra-based rituals in this text as an important node in the burgeoning network of early tantric ritual technologies and female deity reverence in South Asian Buddhism. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
In order to direct ourselves along the spiritual path, we
need a goal to work toward, as an arrow needs a target.
Through bodhicitta, the next gate to practice in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, we continue to aim at the
target of enlightenment for the benefit of others every moment we practice. This is the best of all possible goals.
Bodhicitta is foundational to all we do, like the root of a
medicinal tree whose branches, leaves, and flowers all produce life-enhancing medicine. The quality and purity of
our practice depend on its permeating every method we
use. With it, everything is assured. Without it, nothing will
work.
This is why from the very first time we listen to the
teachings we are told to establish the liberation of all beings
as the purpose of our practice. We render ourselves fit vessels for spiritual teachings and practice by changing our
motivation from one of self-interest to one of altruism.
Bodhicitta has three components: generating compassion
for the suffering of all beings; aspiring to attain enlightenment i n order to achieve the capacity to benefit all beings, called ''wishing bodhicitta''; and actively engaging i n the path of liberation in order to accomplish that goal, called
''engaging bodhicitta''.
The Tibetan term for the Sanskrit bodhicitta is ''jang chub sem''. ''Jang'' means the removal of obscurations, ''chub'' the revealing of all perfect qualities within, and ''sem'' mind. Through the practice of bodhicitta mind, we purify obscurations and enhance our intrinsic positive qualities, revealing enlightened mind. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
The main practice of the man of great scope is the development of Bodhichitta. In this development, one needs first to attain equanimity (''btang-snyoms'') towards all sentient beings, and for this there are two methods: One may visualize in succession a person hated, another loved, and one to whom one feels indifferent, or visualize all three at the same time, the hated one visualized on the right, the loved one on the left, and the one to whom one feels indifferent in the centre. The latter method has been found more effective by meditators in Tibet. When you turn your attention to the one you hate, let your aversion arise. Then ask yourself, "Why should there be this feeling?" The person may have treated you poorly in this life but
been very kind to you in a former one. There are no
grounds for such a partial reaction towards him. Now recall the one whom you love and let all your attachment for
him become manifest. Likewise, contemplate that in a former life, this person may have inflicted you with unbearable suffering, but because this is lost from memory, you only know how he has treated you in this life. By such
contemplation, equalize your feelings towards these two
people. View your reactions towards them with detachment,
realizing how absurd they are. And finally, meditate on one
towards whom you are indifferent and recall that in your
countless previous lives, he has been both your friend and
enemy. Thus, there is no reason to feel any differently towards him than you do towards your enemies or friends of
this life. This quality of change in relationships with others
from one life to another is also very evident during one
lifetime.
Equanimity towards all creatures is the basis of Bodhichitta, and it is impossible for Bodhichitta to be generated without it. As you practise these contemplations, apply them to your daily life, first towards your neighbours, then towards your community and keep expanding as you become more and more skilled. Recognize that your immediate reactions towards others are due to karmic forces from recent lives. It is a mistake to let your feelings towards others depend upon what they have done to you, for you thereby blindly react to their more recent actions, utterly ignoring
the fact that both you and they are in constant state of
change.
This essay is a study of the corpus of texts associated with the ''Vinayasūtra'', written by ninth-century Indian scholar Guṇaprabha, and included in the Tibetan Tengyur. The essay begins with consideration of the sūtra format of the texts, the myths associated with the author, and continues to examine the Indian and Chinese Vinayas available to the Tibetans and their choice of the Mūlasarvāstivāda and Guṇaprabha’s ''Vinayasūtra'' corpus. These are followed with a brief discussion of the problems of manuscript availability and translation into Tibetan. The essay concludes with a brief review of the texts and their translators. The Tibetans' choice of these texts as core documents for Tibetan Buddhism is relevant to the study of canon formation, to the institutionalization of monasticism, the place of monastic life in Tibetan Buddhism in relation to philosophical inquiry and tantric ritual, and to the Tibetans' preference for Indian sources. +
H
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
The ''Healing Anger'' is a result of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's four day teachings (in eight sessions) at Phoenix and Tucson, Arison, 1993 at the invitation of Howard C. Cutler, M.D. The book begins with a long introduction by the translator with a short biography of Śāntideva, the author of the root text ''Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life''. He also traces the origin of mind training in this text. His Holiness the Dalai Lama's present teaching is a lucid explanation on the sixth chapter of this text. The introduction also highlights the import of the teaching with special reference to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings. The book is supplemented by a glossary and a list of books recommended for further reading.<br> Each session forms a chapter of this book and thus it has eight chapters. It begins with an introduction to the various Buddhist vehicles whereby His Holiness tells that the present teaching is from the Mahāyāna teachings. His commentary begins and sums up with the general import of Buddhism with special reference to patience, quoting each verse from the patience chapter of the ''Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life''. Before the end of each session there is a reflection on what has been taught. This has been written under the heading, Meditation. Each meditation is followed by a question-answer hour where the audience put up their doubts and misunderstandings with particular reference to the present teaching. (Naga, "Review," 92) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/43302421 Read more here] +
