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From Bodhicitta
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No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
If we proceed from the premise that an act of reading always approaches the text from a particular vantage point—that reading cannot truly occur in the abstract or encompass the text fully—we will expect to encounter particular or even idiosyncratic instances of reading. In such particular acts of reading, questions of who the readers are, the assumptions and points of view that they bring to the text, and how they interpret the text all become relevant.<br> When we turn to Indian Buddhist sūtras, even while much of the corpus appears to consist of texts without recorded histories of use from the land of their origin, instances of reading can still be recovered from several kinds of sources. In this connection, Jonathan Z. Smith has warned historians of religion against what he calls "ultimate acts of imperialism," which he describes as religion scholars' "removal of all rights to interpretation from the native,
and the arrogation of all such rights to themselves."[2] In the same influential essay, Smith emphasizes the utility of traditional exegeses in aiding religion scholars' work of interpreting canonical texts and charting their creative uses.<br> Dozens of sūtra commentaries in Tibetan and Chinese translation and the Pāli exegeses of the Sutta Piṭaka have preserved for us readings of the sūtras from South Asia. Further traces of reading can be recovered from sūtra citations, scriptural anthologies, and
even occasional incorporation of isolated verses and sentences from sūtras into ritual texts. Some of these sources—especially citations and anthologies—require careful analysis before we can obtain usable information about reading practices. Many of these texts also show that readings discernible in them have been filtered through particular perspectives. The interpretations of sūtras in the commentaries are normative and thus sometimes not truly indicative of typical acts of reading; śāstras' uses of sūtras in the form of citation may reveal more of the former texts' own interest. Scriptural anthologies arrange sūtra passages according to their own organizing principles or for purposes of religious programs. However, as elitist or less than transparent as they might be, these sources still contain some of the best evidence we have of how sūtras were read in premodern South Asia.<br> This paper will focus on sūtra citation in the śāstras as a source for the study of reading practices in premodern South Asia. Immediately, the situation of sūtra passages in the context of śāstras and their commentaries brings the relationship between sūtras and śāstric texts into focus.[3] The setting of a citation presumes at least some degree of śāstric mediation in the reading of the sūtra passages. While it is necessary to be particularly conscious about this śāstric angle of vision and its implications, one can still detect reading habits that lie beyond śāstras' doctrinal concerns. As the selected sūtra passages are brought to bear on the contents of a śāstra or a śāstra commentary, the features of the sūtra's language also become particularly visible (arguably in the eyes of both writers and readers), set in relief against the environment of the śāstric texts. For our purposes, the language of sūtras encompasses not only their linguistic peculiarities but their rhetorical and literary features as well.<br> A further factor that could contribute to a Buddhist's sūtra-reading experience is his or her view on the nature of language. In the specific case that I have selected for this study, a Madhyamaka articulation of the philosophy of language addresses both the nature of a buddha's enlightenment and the intimate connection between language and conventional truth (''saṃvṛtisatya''), or the world as it is experienced by ordinary beings. Using examples of citation by the Madhyamaka writer Candrakīrti, this paper will demonstrate that it is the cumulative effect of the sūtras' language that emerges most distinctively in the environment of the śāstric text, although selected contents from the sūtras also contribute to the formation of new philosophical and theological ideas. (Li, preliminary remarks, 231–33)
<h5>Notes</h5>
#I would like to thank the Mangalam Research Center for hosting me during "The Language of the Sūtras" conference in June 2015, when the initial version of this essay was discussed. Professor Luis O. Gómez nurtured and supported me around the time I finished my dissertation and began a career as a junior scholar. This study on the citations from the ''Samādhirāja-sūtra'' is a tribute to him, who contributed himself to an earlier fine work on the first four chapters of the sūtra. Natalie Gummer's editorial assistance has significantly improved the presentation of the materials. The revision of this essay was also supported by the Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 17ZDA235).
#Jonathan Z. Smith, "Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon," in ''Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown'' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 43.
#I use the phrase "śāstric texts" to refer to both śāstras and their commentaries. The similarities between these two groups of texts in contents and methods warrant placing them in the same category. One may argue that sūtra commentaries also share many features with śāstras and their commentaries, at least in methods, but they are excluded here because they are primarily concerned with the contents of the sūtras that they comment on.
Spinoza through the Prism of Later 'East-West' Exchanges: Analogues of Buddhist Themes in the Ethics and the Works of Early Spinozists +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
In the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, one sees the first significant contact between European philosophers and the world of Buddhist and other Asian philosophical traditions. As we shall see, however, this contact was limited in many ways, especially during the lifetime of Baruch Spinoza (1632–77), our main focus in this chapter. Our chapter falls into the 'pre-contact' part of this volume, because for almost all the figures we discuss here, the ''primary'' sources of Asian philosophy – and especially Buddhism – remained largely unavailable. The sort of direct inspiration for which Schopenhauer is famous was still a long way off, whether we are speaking of Spinoza's own time and place, or of those, almost a century later, who began to see the putatively 'Asiatic' resonance of his philosophy as a positive rather than a negative feature. Our aim here is not merely historical, though. Besides noting such episodes as the 'Chinese Rites Controversy' in Spinoza's time, we will approach Spinoza on his own terms, before asking how his ideas compare to those of Buddhist ethics. And in addition to considering Chinese forms of Buddhism, we consider the Indo-Tibetan ones (and some Hindu themes) that came to be familiar only in the late eighteenth century – the time when Spinozist ideas were taken more seriously than ever before, albeit newly inflected with currents of thought deriving partly from Asian sources. (Davis and Renaud, preliminary remarks, 107) +
In order to overcome the five main obstacles facing a bodhisattva, says Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, we must realize that all beings are primordially pure. He presents the essential teachings on buddhanature from Maitreya’s ''Uttaratantra Shastra''. +
Skilton challenges the widespread assumption that ''samādhi'' in the titles of early Mahāyāna "samādhi sūtras" refers to a meditative state or altered consciousness. Taking the ''Samādhirājasūtra'' (SRS) as his starting point, he shows that the sūtra's own text explicitly identifies its central samādhi—the ''sarvadharmasvabhāvasamatāvipañcita-samādhi''—not with any described meditation technique, but with a list of roughly 330 terms and phrases (largely cognitive, ethical, and behavioral in character) that occupies most of chapter 1 and is recapitulated in verse in chapter 17 and glossed in chapter 39. Comparable identifications of ''samādhi'' with an embedded list of terms occur in the ''Pratyutpannasamādhisūtra'', the ''Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra'', and two further texts, including the ''Prasāntaviniścayaprātihāryasamādhisūtra'', which demonstrably borrows and splices together the "samādhi lists" of the SRS and ''Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra'' under a new name—showing that at least one ancient redactor understood ''samādhi'' in exactly this textual, rather than experiential, sense. Skilton argues that prior scholars (including Lamotte and the Gómez/Silk volume) have overlooked or explained away this explicit self-identification, imposing an assumed meditative framework where the texts themselves indicate none.
From this, Skilton draws out the term's underlying logic: just as ''samādhi'' denotes a "collected" or unified state of mind (from the verbal root sam-ā-dhā, "to collect together"), in this group of texts it is used by extension to denote a "collection" of terms—a literary statement rather than a meditative state. On this basis he proposes rendering the ''Samādhirājasūtra''<i>'</i>s title accordingly as "The Discourse on the King of Collections," reflecting the sūtra's own account of what its central ''samādhi'' actually is. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
The ''Bodhicharyavatara'', or ''The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life'', is a teaching from the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism—the tradition of the ''bodhisattva'', the compassionate warrior. In the Mahayana, the emphasis is on awakening—on thinking bigger—so that you can benefit other people. The author is Shantideva, a monk who lived in the eighth century in India.
The first three chapters of ''The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life'' introduce us to the principle of ''bodhichitta'' and how it may arise in us. ''Bodhichitta''—awakened heart or awakened mind—is something everyone has access to. It arises in everyone, and everyone has experienced it. The text says that it often appears like "a flash of lightning in the dark." It’s like there's an opening in the clouds. We sense that we’re connected to something that wakes us up and makes our world feel bigger. It makes our heart and our whole being feel expansive; we feel confident and inspired. But, unfortunately, our habitual patterns are so strong that the opening usually closes again. We revert to our old ways of staying stuck in negative mind. We get hooked again in our old patterns. +
The project of comparing Stoicism and Buddhism may appear to be an improbable one. While the latter determines that we strive for an enlightenment that contributes to the liberation of all living beings, the doctrines of the former would seem to entail that this is impossible. Though both strongly affirm principles of causality and cyclicity in the constitution of the world, Buddhism apparently grants considerably more freedom of human agency than does Stoicism. Their conception of eternal return in the strict and literal sense is foreign to the Buddhist notion of the bodhisattva's ongoing spiritual progress through numberless lives. These distinctions, moreover, sometimes issue in markedly different ethical orientations: the Buddhist elevation of compassion in the constellation of cardinal virtues finds its Stoic pendant in a more restrained attitude of commiseration. ([https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118609187.ch6 Source Accessed May 10, 2021]) +
Suffering Made Sufferable: Śāntideva, Dzongkaba, and Modern Therapeutic Approaches to Suffering's Silver Lining +
Suffering's positive side was elucidated beautifully by the eighth century Mahāyāna poet Śāntideva in his ''Bodhicāryavatāra''. Dzongkaba Losang Drakpa, the founder of what came to be known as the Gelukba (''dge lugs pa'') order of Tibetan Buddhism, used Śāntideva's text as his main source in the chapter on patience in his masterwork, ''Lam rim Chenmo''. In this article I attempt to explicate Śāntideva's thought by way of the commentary of Dzongkaba. I then consider it in the context of what Ariel Glucklich has called "Sacred Pain"—the myriad ways in which religious people have found meaning in pain. I will conclude with some observations about ways in which some Buddhist-inspired or -influenced therapeutic movements such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Positive Psychology are helping contemporary people to reconcile themselves to pain or to discover that it may have positive value. +
Sunlight Blessings That Cure the Longing of Remembrance: A Biography of the Omniscient Khunu Mahāsattva, Tenzin Gyeltsen (Khunu Lama Rinpoche) +
This biography chronicles the life of Khunu Lama Rinpoche, Tenzin Gyeltsen (1895-1977). Born in Khunu, a region in the Himalayan borderlands of India, he dedicated his life to the study and transmission of Buddhist teachings across all traditions. Over decades of study with numerous masters throughout Tibet and India, he mastered an extraordinary range of subjects including Sanskrit grammar, logic, medicine, astrology, and the profound teachings of sutra and tantra from all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Despite his vast learning, he maintained profound humility, living in simple isolation and rejecting wealth and fame. He is perhaps best known for composing ''The Jewel Lamp: Verses in Praise of Bodhicitta'', which earned high praise from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His final years were spent teaching throughout the Himalayan regions, benefiting countless disciples regardless of their background or status. He passed away in 1977 in Garzha (Lahaul) while teaching, displaying signs of high realization. His life exemplified the ideal of the nonsectarian scholar-practitioner devoted entirely to preserving and spreading the Buddha's teachings.
The biography was composed by Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche (born 1939), a close disciple of Khunu Lama Rinpoche who describes himself as "the last in the row of disciples" of his master. Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche served as president of the weavers of Bir and later as secretary of the Drikung Central Dharma Organization. The text was translated from Tibetan by Erick Tsiknopoulos and Mike Dickman, with review by Tibetan scholar Gen Dawa Tsering. The translation was completed in 2011. in Darjeeling, India. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
The list of commentaries on the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' preserved in Tibetan translations[1] as given by Amalia Pezzali contains besides the ''Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā'' of Prajñākaramati the titles of ten works[2]. Four of them exceed in length Śāntideva's poem; from this we may deduce that they are really commentaries: The ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatārasaṃskāra'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i legs par sbyar ba'' )[3], the ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatārapañjkā'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i dka' 'grel'')[4], and the ''Bodhicaryāvatāratātparyapañjikāviśeṣadyotanī'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub kyi spyod pa la 'jug pa'i dgoṅs pa'i 'grel pa khyad par gsal byed'')[5], like the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'', each comprise ten chapters. The ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāravivṛttipañjikā'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i rnam par bsad pa'i bka'i'' [recte: ''dka' 'grel'')[6] is divided into nine chapters, this could indicate that — as in the ''Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā'' — the Pariṇāmanāpariccheda [7] is not commented upon. Two smaller works deal with parts of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' only: the ''Prajñāparicchedapañjikā''[8] gives interpretations on the ninth and the
''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāravivṛtti'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i rnam par bsad pa'')[9] on the ninth and tenth chapters. Of the four remaining short texts only the ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāraduravabodha[pāda]nirṇayanāmagrantha'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i rtogs par dka' ba 'i gnas gtan la dbab pa žes bya ba'i gžuṅ'')[10] is a true commentary, for it deals with some passages difficult to understand. The ''Bodhisattvacaryāsutrikṛtāvavāda'' (Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa mdo tsam gdams hag tu byas pa'')[11] composed by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna, commonly known by his title Atiśa, does not explain the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra''; it is an "instruction about the [right] course of conduct of a Bodhisattva given in short".<br> The two not yet mentioned texts from the list of commentaries, the ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāraṣaṭtriṃśatpiṇḍārtha'' (hereafter: BcaSP; Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i don sum cu rtsa drug bsdus pa'')[12] and the ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatārapiṇḍārtha'' (hereafter: BcaP; Tibetan ''Byaṅ chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i don bsdus pa'')[13] , were written by Dharmapāla, in Tibetan Gser gliṅ gi bla ma Chos skyoṅ. This Buddhist teacher came from Suvarṇadvīpa, nowadays Sumatra; he was an important guru of Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna, from whose biography the data of his life can be seen[14]. The boy who was to become the teacher Gser gliṅ pa was born into the royal family, his name is given in a gloss inserted later into the account as Senasena (Tibetan: ''si na si na'')[15]. This prince is said to have found a statue of Śākyamuni and thereupon to have become a Buddhist. For religious studies he travelled to India where he met his main teacher Mahaśrīratna. After having miraculous dreams he received the instruction asked for and was given the name Gser gliṅ pa Chos kyi grags pa. This is the name used throughout the biographical tradition concerning Atiśa; we may render it as Suvarṇadvīpa[16] Dharmakīrti. In the Tibetan Buddhist Canons we find the personal name as Dharmapāla; the difference in the second parts of these names cannot be explained. According to the legendary account available Suvarṇadvīpa became famous for his erudition after returning to his country so that many pupils - including Atiśa - travelled there. But it might be possible that Dharmapāla/-kīrti stayed in Northern India and worked as a teacher of Buddhism there, for in Tibet, in Reting Monastery, relics of
Gser gliṅ pa [17] — presumably brought there by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna — are preserved [18].<br> The titles of the above two works of Suvarṇadvīpa indicate their literary category with the word ''piṇḍārtha'', which is not to be found in the modern dictionaries of classical Sanskrit [19]. It appears as an entry in the ''Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary'' with the explanation "meaning of the sum or whole mass, summary meaning"[20], and in ''The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary'' the compound ''piṇḍāttha'' is translated as "condensed meaning, resume"[21]. The fact that the BcaSP and the BcaP consist only of stanzas quoted from the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' has been pointed out in an article published in 1966 by Yasunori Ejima[22] • Louis de la Vallée Poussin knew already that these two works are not commentaries proper, since he speaks of "un sommaire de notre traite (Bodhicaryāvatārapiṇḍārtha) d'un certain Dharmapāla ( ou ºrakṣita)"[23] . In the preface to his edition of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' and the commentary of Prajñākaramati P. L. Vaidya seems to refer to the same fact: "An abridgement of the BCA, called ''Piṇḍārtha'' in thirtysix verses is prepared by Kamalaśīla and is found translated in Tanjur by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna"[24] . This statement should be corrected in at least two points: The name Kamalaśīla stands for Kamalarakṣita[25] , and instead of one work comprising 36 stanzas one has to reckon with one of about 30 verses and another of about 80 verses.<br> The present paper aims at presenting identifications of the stanzas quoted from the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' in the BcaSP and in the BcaP. Through this it is also possible to understand the relation between these two abstracts composed by Suvarṇadvīpa which is indicated by the identical words in both the titles.
<h5>Notes</h5>
#The many commentaries on the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' composed in Tibetan cannot be considered in this paper.
#Amalia Pezzali, ''Śāntideva, mystique bouddhiste des VII<sup>e</sup> et VIII<sup>e</sup> sièles. Firenze 1968 (Testi e ricerche dei Scienze religiose. 3.), 59-61; a list presenting the same titles appeared already in P. L. Vaidya. ''Études sur Āryadeva et son Catuḥśataka. Chapitres VIII-XVI''. Paris 1923, 56-57.
#Available in Daisetz T. Suzuki (ed.). ''The Tibetan Tripitika. Peking Edition. Reprinted under the Supervision of the Otani University, Kyoto''. Tokyo 1955-1961 (hereafter: TT), as No. 5275, covering about 106 folios. The titles of works preserved in Tibetan translations only have been taken from TT (with changed transliteration for the Tibetan).
#Available in TT, No. 5277, covering about 74 folios.
#Available in TT, No. 5282, covering about 114 folios.
#Available in TT, No. 5274, covering about 71 folios.
#This is the title of the tenth chapter (in the Tibetan colophon: ''bsṅo ba žes bya ba'i le'u bcu pa). The authenticity of this chapter was questioned, since the ''Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā'' of Prajñākaramati does not give explanations to it.<br>
#Tibetan ''Šes rab le'u'i dka' 'grel''; available in TT, No. 5278, covering about 24 folios.
#Available in TT, No. 5 279, covering about 13 folios.
#Available in TT, No. 5276, covering about 6 folios.
#Available in TT, No. 5342, 5348 and 5385, covering about 3 pages. If one would take the titles beginning with ''Bodhi(sattva)caryā-'' or ''Byaṅ chub (sems dpa'i) spyod pa-'' as those of commentaries on the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'', TT, No. 5332 ''Bodhisattvacaryā[saṃgraha]pradīparatnamālā, could be included into the list; but this text does not comment upon Śāntideva's poem.
#This is the title given at the beginning of the text; TT, No. 5280, covering about 4 folios.
#This is the title given at the beginning of the text; TT, No. 5 281, covering about 3 pages.
#''Jo bo rje dpal ldan mar me mdzad ye šes kyi rnam thar rgyas pa'', fol. 10b2-12b3 and 28b4-30a4, as now published in Helmut Eimer. ''Rnam thar rgyas pa. Materialien zu einer Biographie des Atiśa'' (Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna). Wiesbaden 1979. (Asiatische Forschungen. 67), part 2, pages 34-41 and 95-100.
#See Eimer, ''op. cit.'', part 1, page 92.
#This form is derived from the transliteration given in the ''Bodhimārgadipapañjikā'', TT, No. 5344: vol. 103, page 22, 4, 3.
#See Alfonsa Ferrari t. ''Mk'yen brtse's Guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet''. Roma 1958. (Serie Orientale Roma. XVI.), 38 and 78 note 6.
#Some further considerations on this topic are given by Eimer, ''op. cit''., part 1, page 116.
#This includes the dictionaries by Otto Boehtlingk, Monier Monier-Williams and Vaman Shivram Apte as well as the ''Nachträge zum Wörterbuch ... von Otto Boehtlingk'' by Richard Schmidt.
#Franklin Edgerton, BHSD, 345a.
#T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede, PTSD, 458b.
#Yasunori Ejima. '',Nyubo daigyōron'' no chūshaku bunken ni tsuite'. ''lndogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū'' XIV (1966), 64 7-648. I extend my thanks to Dr. Akira Yuyama, Tokyo, for a copy of this paper and to Dr. Sigmara Sato-Diesner, Bonn, for the translation of the passage needed.
#Louis de la Vallée Poussin. ''Bodhicaryāvatāra, Introduction à la pratique des futurs Bouddhas. Poème de Çāntideva, Traduit du sanscrit et annoté''. Paris 1907, 143.
#P. L. Vaidya (ed.). ''Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva, with the Commentary Pañjkā of Prajñākaramati''. Darbhanga 1960. (Buddhist Sanskrit Texts. 12.), X.
#In the colophons to the BcaSP and the BcaP he is named together with Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna as having asked Suvarṇadvīpa to compose the two summaries.
Synergies of Devotion, Compassion, and Wisdom in Śāntideva for Buddhists and Christians (Makransky 2021) +
This essay will focus on three kinds of practice that help structure Śāntideva's ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' (BCA): (1) practices of faith and devotion, (2) practices for cultivating compassion, and (3) practices for cultivating the nondual wisdom of emptiness. We will explore how these three types of practice, as explained in the BCA text, function synergistically to inform and empower each other on the path of a bodhisattva. I will draw on selected verses of the BCA to illustrate this point, and then relate it to recent writings on Śāntideva by Christian theologians Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Mark Heim. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
In recent years, Buddhism has won many converts in the West. It appears to offer a perspective which is at once religious and free from the theistic notion, unacceptable to many modern minds, of a personal creator-God. But its attraction owes, as well, to a moral doctrine of universal compassion that knows no boundaries of nation, class, sex or even species. The exhortation 'whatever living beings there be: feeble or strong . . . seen or unseen . . . far or near . . . may all beings be happy![1] seems more congenial to the modern sensibility than the ''Gita''<i>'</i>s call (see chapter 6 above) to performance of duties, military ones included, for their own sake.<br> The importance of compassion and 'loving-kindness' seems to be implied by the first of the 'four noble truths' announced by Gotama, the Buddha, in the sixth or fifth century BCE — that life is 'suffering', 'sorrow', 'dis-ease', 'unsatisfactoriness' (just some of the suggested translations of the Pali word ''dukkha''). But other Buddhist doctrines make it problematic as to why and how moral concern should have a central role. The other noble truths suggest that it is essentially through understanding and wisdom that 'suffering' is to be overcome — through, above all, recognizing that the desires or 'cravings' which are responsible for 'suffering' are due to a mistaken 'clinging' to a non-existent 'self'. Morality, it can seem, is at most a useful preparation for that 'renunciation' of self-centred desire which is a prerequisite for entry into the enlightened condition of ''nirvana'' ('extinction'). Moreover, one is bound to ask, if this 'extinction', this release from the round of rebirth, is the proper goal, why should one care too much about improving conditions for creatures still caught up in this process? Anyway, if a person is 'not-self, but perhaps merely a bundle of passing mental states without any centre of identity, to whom exactly are compassion and loving-kindness directed?<br> It is unsurprising, therefore, that some commentators, such as Max Weber and Albert Schweitzer, have regarded Buddhism as a 'cold', amoral religion—and certainly in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, the emphasis has tended to be upon renunciation and asceticism rather than moral action.[2] But in the Mahayana ('Great Vehicle') tradition which arose in opposition to the earlier one, a central tenet is that of universal compassion, understood as a loving commitment to help all creatures escape from 'suffering'. The pledge of the ''bodhisattva'' ('the being of enlightenment'), who postpones his or her attainment of ''nirvana'', is 'However numerous are the sentient beings that exist, I vow to save them all!'.[3]<br> While there are many moral 'manuals' in the Buddhist literature, edifying precepts enjoining temperance, charity, friendship and so on, there is a dearth of sustained discussion attempting to reconcile the importance of morality with the doctrines mentioned above. In my two selections—both from the Mahayana tradition—one discerns, however, arguments for universal compassion compatible with, or even grounded in, those doctrines. In his commentary on the poem ''Three Principal Paths'' by the most famous Buddhist philosopher of Tibet, Tsongkapa (1357-1419), the monk and university teacher Pabongka Rinpoche (1878-1941} mentions two methods of 'training one's mind' for aiming at 'saving' all creatures—the 'seven-part, cause-and-effect instruction' and 'exchanging self and others'. It is the former which he adumbrates, the latter being the main theme in my selection from the eighth-century CE Indian monk Śāntideva's 'Guide to the Buddhist Path to Awakening', 'one of the great spiritual poems of mankind'[4] and a text especially influential in Tibetan Buddhism. Although both authors speak of 'methods' for inducing a compassionate attitude, we
might instead think of these as arguments for why one ought to adopt such an attitude.<br> The two 'methods' or arguments are, I think, fairly self-explanatory: both aim to cultivate a 'selfless' or 'neutral' attitude towards ourselves and others. In the Tibetan text, the argument is based on our relationships with other people in past and future lives. This raises the question of the relevance of such arguments to those non-Buddhists who are unable to accept the doctrine of rebirth. I invite readers to try amending the arguments, to treat them as grounded in reflections not on how we actually were and will be related to other people in past and future lives, but on how we might have been related to them in this one. Instead, for example, of reflecting, like Tsongkapa, that this woman, whom I may be treating badly, was my mother in a previous life, reflect on the facts that she ''might'' have been my mother in this one and that she probably is the mother of someone who might have been my best friend.<br> A residual worry may be that, for all the talk of selfless compassion, the motive for it remains a selfish one—ensuring ''nirvana'' for oneself. But, as a great commentator pointed out, 'if a Buddhist undergoes the discipline that leads to ''nirvana'' . . . it is in order to diminish by one the number of living and suffering beings'.[5] In other words, someone with a selfless or neutral attitude will regard his own future lives as just one more series of 'bundles of suffering', no more, but no less, deserving of compassion than any other. Moreover, as Śāntideva reminds us (e.g. verse 98), the doctrine of 'not-self' entails that these future lives are not in any substantial sense 'mine', but only loosely continuous with 'my' present one, so that aiming to forestall them (by achieving ''nirvana'') is no more egocentric than it is altruistic.[6]
<h5>Notes</h5>
#''The Sutta-Nipata'', London: Curzon Press, 1985, 16:4–5.
#In the authoritative Theravada treatise, Buddhaghosa's ''The Path of Purification'', Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1991, 'virtue' is only the first stage, before 'concentration' and 'understanding', on this path. But see Steven Collins, ''Selfless Persons'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 194f, on not exaggerating the difference between the two traditions.
#Quoted in Heinrich Dumoulin, ''Understanding Buddhism'', New York: Weatherhill, 1994, p. 76.
#Paul Williams, ''Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations'', London: Routledge, 1989, p. 198.
#Louis de le Vallée Poussin, quoted in Collins, ''Selfless Persons'', p. 193.
#For an interesting attempt by a modern Western Philosopher to explore the implications of something like the Buddhist 'not-self' doctrine, see Derek Parfit, ''Reasons and Persons'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.
T
Chapter 3 continues with verses that explain the remainder of the limbs or branches of the supreme worship that began in chapter 2: rejoicing in virtue, the request that the teachers should turn the wheel of the Dharma, the prayer that the teachers might not pass into nirvana, and the dedication of one's roots of virtue for the sake of others. +
Ogyen Trinley Dorje, 17th Karmapa — Talk on Vegetarianism<br>
Kagyu Monlam, Bodhgaya, January 3, 2007
This is a transcript of a half-hour talk on vegetarianism delivered by the 17th Karmapa at the 24th Kagyu Monlam. Speaking informally and personally, he addresses the question of meat-eating from multiple angles — Vinaya, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna — and concludes with concrete institutional directives for the Karma Kagyu community.
The Karmapa begins by acknowledging the standard Vinaya position on threefold purity but argues that for beginner bodhisattvas, even technically permissible meat is to be avoided, because attachment to the taste of meat leads inevitably to complicity in killing. He draws on the Laṅkāvatārasūtra and Bodhisattvayāna sources, and cites earlier Kagyu masters — including the 8th Karmapa Mikyö Dorje, Karma Chakmé, and Jamgön Kongtrul — who spoke strongly against meat consumption. On the Vajrayāna question, he follows Karma Chakmé in holding that the ritual use of the five meats applies only to the most advanced practitioners and cannot justify ordinary consumption.
The Karmapa also speaks personally, describing his own childhood attachment to meat and his decision to give it up, and connecting the practice of abstention to life release and the removal of obstacles.
He closes with a set of binding directives for Karma Kagyu institutions: no meat-related business by monks, nuns, or lay followers; no slaughterhouses on monastery grounds; no meat cooked in monastery kitchens. For those unable to give up meat entirely, he proposes a graduated approach — reducing to one meal per day, abstaining on special days, or at minimum generating compassion before eating. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
As Jonathan Gold points out in his introduction to this volume, Śāntideva's ''Guide'' is a "classic," a text that speaks so deeply to common human concerns that it can resonate with people born into cultures far removed in time and space from that of the author. A classic is, in short, "universal"—or nearly so. For all our human commonalities and interconnections, however, even in the twenty-first century we live in a profoundly plural world, so to be truly meaningful in a wide variety of settings, hence fulfill the definition of a "classic," a text must not only achieve excellence of form and content and touch on "timeless" questions but also be, in the language of theologian David Tracy, plural and ambiguous.[1] That is, it must overflow with possible meanings and uses, while avoiding any straightforward statement as to which of these meanings and uses is definitive or final. It is safe to say that religious texts such as the Bible, the Qur'ān, and the ''Bhagavad Gītā'', or the literary works of Dante, Shakespeare, and Rumi, would never have become classics had they been open only to a single interpretation; it is precisely because they are plural and ambiguous that they could appeal to people in various times and places. Put another way, a classic is a "wild" text, resistant to domestication, impossible to fully subdue or contain. Yet to be human is to seek to tame the wild, whether encountered as natural forces, our fellow creatures,or the intractable meanings we seek to wrest from the world.<br> As a classic, the ''Guide'' is plural, ambiguous—and "wild." It is plural because it may be read as a ritual manual, a guide to meditation, an inquiry into ethics, a treatise on metaphysics, a psychological self-interrogation, a great devotional poem—or all of the above. It is ambiguous because its precise meaning, especially in its philosophical passages, was debated for centuries in India, for a millennium (and counting) among Tibetans, and now is contested by academics and Buddhist practitioners in the West. And it is, uncontestably, wild. Granted, it is systematic to a degree, more or less following the course of a bodhisattva's training as crystallized in the six perfections (''pāramitā''). Just as often, however, it is marked by Śāntideva's improvisational approach to the topics that interest him, as shown, for instance, in the way he will proffer one set of meditative reflections, then suggest a different tack, and another—not in an attempt
to establish a rigid contemplative sequence but to provide himself and the reader with a set of possibilities, at least one of which is bound to be effective. In this way, the ''Guide'' is resistant to highly ramified commentary—yet that is precisely the treatment it has received from scholastic traditions, especially in Tibet, where for a thousand years or more it has shaped understanding of what it means to be a bodhisattva, working toward full awakening for the sake of all beings. Despite the ''Guide'''s occasional unruliness, its sheer poetic, philosophical, and psychological brilliance—not to mention its influence in India—made it impossible to ignore, so scholastics within the developing monastic orders of second-millennium Tibet set out to "tame" it, to routinize its charisma, by bringing it under their intellectual and institutional control.[2]<br> This chapter will examine one such attempt to tame the ''Guide'', that of Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa (Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa, 1357-1417), the forefather of the Geluk (''dge lugs'') order of Tibetan Buddhism, the monastic lineage that would give Tibet the institution of the Dalai Lamas and dominate Tibetan politics from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century. Tsongkhapa was one of the most influential figures in Tibetan Buddhist history, at once a visionary mystic, a brilliant and controversial philosopher, a dogged monastic reformer, and a founder of religious institutions that have lasted down to the present day. Our primary focus will be on Tsongkhapa's treatment of the ''Guide'' in his 1402 magnum opus, ''The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Awakening'' (''Byang chub lam rim chen mo''),[3] but we also will cast a backward glance at Indian and Tibetan thinkers preceding him and touch on developments in Geluk tradition after his time. (Jackson, preliminary remarks, 162–63)
<h5>Notes</h5>
#See Tracy, ''Plurality and Ambiguity''.
#For a thoughtful collection of reflections on the theory and practice of scholasticism, see Cabezon, ed., ''Scholasticism'', of special note are Cabezon's introduction (1-17) and the essay by Paul Griffiths ("Scholasticism: The Possible Recovery of an Intellectual Practice," 201-235).
#Tibetan edition: Tsong kha pa, ''sKyes bu gsum gyi rnyams su blang ba'i rim pa thams cad tshang bar ston pa'i byang chub lam gyi rim pa/ Byang chub lam rim che ba''; English translation: Tsong-kha-pa, ''The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment'', trans. Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee. For a helpful gloss on the ''Great Treatise'', see Yangsi Rinpoche, ''Practicing the Path''. For background on the stages of the path, see David Seyfort Ruegg's introduction to Tsong-kha-pa, ''Great Treatise'', vol. 1, 17-32.
The paper introduces part of the Tangut textual corpus, associated with the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' and the ritual composition by Jitāri, ''Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi''. We conclude that in Xixia (1038– 1227) there was a textual cluster revolving around these two texts. Tanguts generated a local tradition of studying both of these texts, whereas the ''Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi'' appeared to have been an important text prescribed for study by the Tangut monks. We discuss the versions of the texts and their commentaries. +
In the process of the study of the Khara-Khoto texts, we identified a group of texts which was identified as the Tangut versions of the "sems phyogs" (Mind Class) texts originally translated by Vairocana. The focus of the paper is the group of texts associated with a composition by Jitāri, [the] Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi, and the Bodhicaryāvatāra. We have carried preliminary identifications of the parts of the surviving Tangut fragments of the Bodhicaryāvatāra and identified the Tangut translation as a version of the Tibetan translation from the 12th century. Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi is represented by several manuscripts and woodblocks printed book versions of the original text together with several commentaries. These commentaries are as of now not identified among the surviving Tibetan texts. We suggest the existence of two commentarial traditions of the Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi, one of which appears to proceed from an alternative translation of the root text. This remains [a] suggestion for now. Finally, we suggest that a textual category of "awakening of faith" mentioned in the Tangut Tiansheng Law Code might have some relationship with the awakening the Bodhicitta rituals in the Tangut State. ([http://caod.oriprobe.com/articles/58832378/Tangut_Texts_of_the_Five_Early_Translations_and_th.htm Source Accessed May 7, 2021]) +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
Among the numerous Sanskrit texts (more than 1000 titles, comprising approximately 50000 palmyra leaves) that have recently been brought to light in and around Lhasa there are also a few tantalizing titles that are bound to create a stir of expectation among Buddhologists all around the globe. Speaking of Madhyamaka ''śāstras'' there are complete Sanskrit manuscripts of Nāgārjuna's ''Ratnāvali'', of ''Dharmadhātustava'' ascribed to that author, of Bhavya's ''Madhyamakahṛdaya''(''kārikā''), Candrakīrti's ''Madhyamakāvatāra'', and of Abhayākaragupta's ''Munimatālaṃkāra'' and ''Madhyamakamañjarī''. There are also manuscripts of texts already available in Sanskrit such as ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'', ''Vigrahavyāvartanī'', ''Prasannapadā'', ''Śikṣāsamuccaya'', ''Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra'', etc. On the other hand, we in vain look for manuscripts containing the works of Āryadeva, Buddhapālita, Kamalaśīla (apart from ''Bhāvanākrama'' I) and Śāntarakṣita (apart from a fragment containing his commentary on the ''Bodhisattvasaṃvaraviṃśaka'', and the complete commentary on the ''Vādanyaya'').<br> Also other trends of Buddhist thought are represented. Here I shall have to confine myself to the most important: The commentary of Sthiramati on Vasubandhu's ''Pañcaskandhaka'' and that of Jinendrabuddhi on Dignaga's ''Pramāṇasamuccaya'' (286 leaves); there is also a fragment of his ''Nyāyamukha'', but no trace of his other works. When it comes to Dharmakīrti, all his works are represented, including complete manuscripts of his ''Pramāṇaviniścaya'', ''Hetubindu'', ''Sambandhaparīkṣā'' and ''Samtānāntarasiddhi'' (fragment). Fate has been kind to Vinitadeva: His commentaries are available on ''Nyāyabindu'', ''Hetubindu'', ''Sambandhaparīkṣā'' and ''Samtānāntarasiddhi''.<br> A large number of Mahāyānasūtras have also been discovered. Among the most interesting is the ''Bodhisattvapiṭaka'', a text very important for the early Mādhyamikas.<br> While most of these manuscripts are still in Tibet, a smaller portion (ca. 250 manuscripts) were brought to Beijing in 1960. Nearly all these manuscripts have already been described, copied or even edited (especially Jñānaśrī and Ratnakīrti) by the great Rāhuljī back in the thirties. (Cf. Michael Torsten Much, ''A Visit to Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana's Collection of Negatives at the Bihar Research Society'', Wien 1988.) Unfortunately, many of Rāhuljī's copies (and editions) are of a very poor quality, and some texts were not even copied by him at all. Hence the main value of the collection of Sanskrit manuscripts in Beijing consists in the fact that it enables us to fill out lacunae left by Rāhuljī.<br> In this paper I intend, for a start, to report the variant readings found in one of these manuscripts. It is a complete copy (23 leaves) of Śāntideva's (or Śāntadeva's) celebrated ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra'', generally known under the abbreviated title ''Bodhicaryāvatāra''. The text has often been edited and translated. Unfortunately, in most cases. the translators have got the title wrong. It is not "Entering the Path of Enlightenment", or some such thing, but rather "A Presentation of (An Introduction to) the Career of a Bodhisattva (i.e. an adherent of Mahāyāna)". For details about manuscripts, editions, etc. I may refer to Amalia Pezzali, ''Śāntideva — mystique bouddhiste des VII<sup>e</sup> et VIII<sup>e</sup> siecles'', Firenze 1968.
The Bodhicaryāvatāra Piṇḍārthas of Suvarṇadvīpa Dharmakīrti: Foundations of a Meditation Tradition +
Two anthologies of Śāntideva's ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' attributed to Serlingpa (930–940 CE) are preserved in the Tibetan canon: the ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatārapiṇḍārtha'' (D3879) and its expanded version ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāraṣaṭṭriṃśatpiṇḍārtha'' (D3878). Translated by Atiśa and Tsultrim Gyalwa, these works systematically reorganize Śāntideva's original text according to an eleven-point structure for practical application. The shorter anthology contains approximately thirty verses from all ten chapters, while the longer version expands to roughly eighty verses with additional emphasis on bodhicitta cultivation and ethical conduct. Both anthologies prioritize practical training over theoretical exposition, representing Serlingpa's pedagogical approach to making Śāntideva's teachings accessible for Buddhist mind training practice. This page presents translations of both texts. +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:
No one, I think, would deny that to remove one's own pain does not in itself count as a moral act, while to soothe the pains of others would in general count as engaging in actions which are morally virtuous. Our Buddhists however - Śāntideva and his commentators - want to argue that morality requires that I make no distinction at all between removing my own pain and soothing the pains of others or, put another way, moral consistency requires that in acting to remove my own pain I must also act to remove the pains of others, and no ''morally significant'' distinction can be drawn between the two imperatives. We find Śāntideva arguing for this as part of his reasoning for the moral (and spiritual) transformation which is called ''bodhicittotpāda'', the arising of the mind set on enlightenment, the mind which seeks perfect Buddhahood precisely because only perfect Buddhahood is finally the fulfilment of the moral imperative, the imperative to strive unceasingly to remove the sufferings of all sentient beings ''without discrimination''.<br> I shall call the position that morality requires that if I am to remove my own pain I must (moral imperative) act to remove the pains of others without discrimination the 'universal thesis' . Śāntideva and his commentators want to argue for the universal thesis based on (i) rational consistency arising at least in part from (ii) how things actually are, how the world is. In other words, Śāntideva takes as an assumption that the disinterested nature of morality is fulfilled by rational consistency, and a moral imperative can be drawn from what is, in the broadest sense, an ontological position. Śāntideva would hold, ''pace'' Hume, that it is very definitely possible to draw an ''ought'' from an ''is'', that the way things are has moral implications and those implications can be - will be - derived through disinterested reason. Our failure to act in conformity with the moral imperative is measured by the extent to which we fail to understand the way things really are, and thus the extent to which we are blocked (through 'beginningless ignorance' and habitual tendencies from time immemorial) from disinterested reason. The centrality of the role of rationality in the moral imperative from this Buddhist perspective is made very clear, for example, by the 'Brug pa bKa' brgyud scholar Padma dkar po, commenting on ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' 8:102–3: 'Therefore it is not rational (''mi rigs'') that one should remove the pain of oneself and not remove the pain of others. It is rational that because it is pain it is to be removed . . . It is rational that if it [i.e. my pain] is to be prevented, all [pain] also is to be prevented (''des na rang gi sdug bsngal bsal / gzhan gyi sdug bsngal mi sel ba mi rigs / sdug bsngal yin phyir de bsal bar bya rigs so . . . gal te bzlog na'ang thams cad bzlog par rigs'').<br> Moral actions, at least the aspired perfect moral actions, occur under the glance (perhaps the stare) of the eye of reason. The 'eye of reason' here is what has sometimes been called in Western philosophy the 'God-eye', the eye which is the paradigm of perfect objectivity, but better spoken of in this context as the Buddha-eye, the eye which - because it is perfectly objective - is also perfectly moral.[1]
<h5>Notes</h5>
#One is tempted to speculate that a being who is perfectly objective would have to see things from every position, and not itself occupy any place. The Buddha-eye is the eye which is everywhere and nowhere. Would this not be omniscience? And a being who is perfectly objective would presumably also be perfectly just and - at least for our Buddhist - be perfectly good as well.
Phakchok Rinpoche talks about the accumulations of merit and wisdom, how they are defined, how they differ from each other, and how to gather them. +
