འཇམ་དཔལ་དཔའ་བོའི་ཞབས་པད་དྲི་མེད་ཉིད། །
While the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī’s pristine lotus feet
ཡན་ལག་མཆོག་གི་པདྨར་རབ་བཀོད་ནས། །
Remained excellently poised atop a supreme lotus,
ཟབ་རྒྱས་ཆོས་ཚུལ་དངོས་སུ་ལེགས་ནོད་པ། །
You directly trained in the Dharma, profound and vast —
མཁན་ཆེན་ཞི་བ་འཚོ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་བསྟོད། །
To Mahāpaṇḍita Śāntarakṣita, homage and praise!
–Verse from Praise to the Great Abbot Śāntarakṣita by Mipham Rinpoche (1906)
“When they present emptiness and the ultimate truth then they are presenting both the approximated emptiness and the unapproximated emptiness. They distinguish between these two when coming to understand the approximated emptiness they say that all phenomena are emptiness but conventionally they do appear they do exist and so they distinguish between the two truths. That is why in they are known as the causal middle way of post-meditation or the path middle way of differentiation in that they differentiate the two truths.” –9th Thrangu Rinpoche on Magic Key Commentary
Introduction
For Guru Rinpoche day, I continue with the offerings for the pararnivana of 9th Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche with an overview of session 4 of Thrangu Rinpoche’s teachings on Khenpo Gangshar’ s Magic Key Commentary together with a transcript. The article about sessions 1-3 on the origins of the Magic Key commentary and the Buddhist schools up to and including Mind-Only, is here: THE MAGIC KEY FOR ENTERING THE GATEWAY OF KNOWLEDGE PART I.
In session 4 of the ‘Magic Key’ teachings, 9th Thrangu Rinpoche transmits the commentary on the three Middle Way (Mādhyamika) Schools:
- Autonomist (Svātantrika: Rang-gyu-pa),
- Consequentialist (Prāsaṅgika: Thal-gyur-pa), and
- Empty-of-Other (Zhen-tong)
These divisions/labels were created by the Tibetan Buddhist masters and do not necessarily represent them as they are seen in other traditions. For example, the inclusion of the Empty-of-Other view as a Middle Way school is questionable, and the 17th Karmapa recently stated in this teaching here, as the school relies on many Yogacara Mind-Only texts, rather than Middle Way, it makes sense to include it in that category or create a new school, that of Buddha-Nature.
Thrangu Rinpoche first gives some brief details about the main philosophical distinction between Mind-Only and Middle Way (who do not accept an existing ground-store-consciousness). The teaching covers the following topics (which I give an overview of below):
- General differences between the three Middle Way/Mādhyamika Schools
- The ‘Great Mother of Wisdom’ source of the Middle Way/Mādhyamika schools
- The Autonomist Mādhyamika School, Nagārjuna’s influence and the three Indian ‘eastern’ abbots
- The Sutra-Autonomist Mādhyamika School – Bhāviveka (Lopon Legden) on the ‘approximate’ and ‘unapproximate’ emptinesses of the relative and ultimate reality/truth
- Yogācāra-Autonomist Mādhyamika – Śāntarakṣita (Zhiwa Tso) on relative appearances as mind, and ultimate reality as emptiness
- The two Autonomist Schools that distinguish the two truths of relative and ultimate – causal middle way of post-meditation, or path middle way of differentiation
[Note: the term: svātantrika madhyamika is how Tibetan Buddhists have divided the Middle Way philosophy of Nāgārjuna into svātantrika (those who make use of svatantra: autonomous syllogisms) and prāsaṅgika , which refers to those madhyamikas who only use prasaṅga (consequential, reductio ad absurdum) arguments.When Buddhism was established in Tibet, the primary philosophic viewpoint established there was that of Śāntarakṣita (725–788), a synthesis of Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and Buddhist logic called Yogācāra-Mādhyamaka. This changed to the Consequentialist school with the ‘influence’ of Je Tsongkhapa and the Gelug takeover/domination of Tibet. More on that in another post!]
Below is my summary of the teaching, which can be used as a study-aid to go along with the transcript downloadable here: Transcript Day 4 – Magic Key Thrangu Rinpoche (or for those who do not have time to read or listen to the whole teaching).
Music? Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel and Middle Ground by Maroon 5.
Written, transcribed and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 28th June 2023.
General Differences between the three Middle Way Schools
1) The Autonomist school ‘differentiations in post-meditation’ and the reality of relative appearances
The Magic Key commentary explains that the Autonomous school (Rang-gyupa) unlike the Consquentialist school, still accept that things appear relatively and thus ‘exist’:
“The autonomous (rang-gyupa) school is what is called a view of making differentiations in post-meditation. Generally, when we have meditation there is the actual equipoise – the actual meditation session, and there is the post-meditation session.
The autonomous school is a school that makes the differentiations in post-meditation. So when you get up out of the equipoise of meditation then there is the experience of post-meditation that happens. In this experience, they combine the feeling of the experience that comes from equipoise with their post meditation. So in the post-meditation there are things that appear and they see that these things are emptiness. In equipoise, you realize the emptiness of all phenomena and see that everything is confusion, but when you get up everything appears and while they appear they do so relatively. So the autonomous school says that ultimately, things are not established, but relatively they can be established. They have that sort of feeling, that sort of experience. That is the presentation of the autonomous school.”
2) Consequentialist School – going straight for the equipoise and not relative appearances
Whereas the consequentialist school generally:
“..goes directly towards the meditative equipoise. So they emphasize the equipoise and do not say that things exist relatively and that they do not exist ultimately. Rather they just go straight for the emptiness of all phenomena, that all phenomena are emptiness. So, this is really the experience of meditation, they are going straight for the experience of meditation. So, the way the consequentialist school presents the emptiness is really mixed with the way they perceive it in their meditative equipoise. This is why it is the school that goes directly for the experience of equipoise.”
3) Empty-of-Other view – ultimate reality is not mere nothingness
Rinpoche gives a brief outline of the Empty-of-Other view, which emphasises the ultimate Buddha Nature’s inherently existing essence/potential and qualities:
“Now both the autonomous school and the consequentialist school mainly established that everything is emptiness. But when we think about emptiness sometimes we have the feeling that emptiness is just voidness, there is nothing at all, blankness. Yet that is not actually how it should be, does that sort of a feeling really does that fit with how the dharma nature actually is? No, it does not fit with it. The dharma nature is not just mere, inanimate emptiness, it has the aspect of wisdom, it has the aspect of clarity, it is there. So during the phase of the ground when we are sentient beings everything is empty but what is the essence of that emptiness? The essence is the potential that in the future it can awaken as all the qualities of the Buddha, as all the wisdom, all the love, and all the power of the Buddha. That potential is there.
That is what we call sometimes the union of primordial awareness and the expanse. Here the expanse (ying) means the dharmadhatu and that is emptiness. Then primordial awareness (yeshe) means this quality of knowing, the quality of love that is present. So the emptiness is understood as being inherently imbued with this quality of wisdom and love by its nature inherently that quality of loving and knowing. That is the union of the expanse and awareness. “
The ‘Great Mother of Wisdom’ Source of the Middle Way schools
Rinpoche then explains that the source of the Middle Way schools, whether they are Empty-of-Self (Rang-tong) view (the Autonomist and Consequentialist) or Empty-of Other (Zhen-tong) view are the ‘three great mother’ Prajnaparamita Sutras taught by the Buddha on Vulture’s Peak, Rajgir, India:
“So what is the meaning of these sutras, what is the intent that they are trying to teach? They are teaching primarily the emptiness of all things. So there are phrases such as there is “no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch no dharmas” and so forth. It is a way of coming to really establish and understand that everything is emptiness. These are the teachings of these sutras on transcendent insight, or prajnaparamita. In the Heart Sutra that is presented in a really condensed way.”
Rinpoche then explains how the short text, the Heart Sutra is the blessed words of the Buddha and why it is important to understand the Middle Way view of emptiness:
“It is actually really important for us to realize emptiness. The reason is that sometimes we get angry, sometimes we feel greedy for something, sometimes we might not feel angry or greedy for something, but we might get really depressed or get fearful of something but when we realize that the essence of everything is emptiness that it has no essence really, there then we will realize that there is actually nothing to be greedy for, nothing to be desirous of, there is actually nothing to be afraid of, there is actually nothing to get angry about. So when we know that we can actually be really inspired, we can be really encouraged by this. This comes from knowing the nature of how things are, there is that potential there. So when we talk about emptiness, what the Buddha taught is not something we can immediately directly know, it is something that we first have to understand and establish through inference. That is why we need to really comprehend and understand the middle way view.”
The Autonomist Mādhyamika School, Nagārjuna’s influence and the three Eastern Indian abbots
Then the Magic Key commentary discusses the first of the Middle Way schools, the Autonomists (Rang-gyupa) and their two divisions into higher and lower.
[Note: the term: svātantrika madhyamika is how Tibetan Buddhists have divided the Middle Way philosophy of Nāgārjuna into svātantrika (those who make use of svatantra: autonomous syllogisms) and prāsaṅgika , which refers to those madhyamikas who only use prasaṅga (consequential, reductio ad absurdum) arguments.]
Rinpoche explains in that the commentary says:
“There are also two higher autonomous schools (Rang-gyu Gongma), when we talk about the higher and the lower autonomous schools, the lower autonomous schools are not really accepted and not really professed by any particular scholars or practitioners of the present day. So when we talk, study and practice the autonomous view these days, we are practicing the view of the higher autonomous schools. Among the views of the higher autonomous schools there are two different types of schools: the Sutra-autonomous school (Dode Gyupa Umapa) and the Yogacara-autonomous school (Namgyur Gyupa Umapa). Who primarily taught the Sutra-autonomous school? It was the master Bhāviveka (Lobpon Legden). Primarily, when we talk about the autonomous school there are three main teachers who taught these and they are often called the three eastern Khenpos.
Now the way that happened is first, when Nagārjuna appeared he wrote his treatise, the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way. This was a really powerful treatise with very strong logic and it was taught very clearly. There is a real difference in the thinking that happened before and after Nagārjuna. Here we are not just talking about the views of Buddhist scholars and masters but about the views of non-Buddhist scholars or masters. When Nagārjuna appeared, later scholars had to modify their views whether they were Buddhists or not. Many scholars these days said that there is a real difference between the views of scholars before Nagārjuna and after Nagārjuna…
When we come to the commentaries and the explanations of Nagārjuna’s view, then we have the autonomous and the consequentialist views. The autonomous views were primarily taught by whom we call the three eastern abbots. The reason we call them that is that at the time the centre of everything was Bodhgaya, which is in the centre of the land of Magadha, which is now in in the state of Bihar. Then there was a King in the east named Palankara, and he was the king of the area of Bengal and he supported the dharma. Under his reign the dharma spread in the eastern areas and there was the great monastic university of Vikramaśīla that was founded in Bengal. Now these days, Vikramaśīla is in Bihar but at that time it was considered Bengal. So it was to the east of Bengal in Magadha. Therefore, the scholars who taught there were called the three eastern Khenpos. These three masters were Bhāviveka, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla.”
The Magic Key commentary then goes into more detail about the three Eastern Autonomists (Rang-gyu Shar Sum རང་རྒྱུད་ཤར་སུམ་): Bhāviveka, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, and how their views differ slightly. Below I give a brief introduction to these Indian masters and their views within the Autonomist school as presented by Thrangu Rinpoche.
The Sutra-Autonomist Mādhyamika School – Bhāviveka (Legden) on the ‘approximate’ and ‘unapproximate’ emptinesses of the relative and ultimate
The first of the three abbots discussed by in the commentary is Bhāvaviveka (Lobpon Legden legs ldan), was a sixth-century (c. 500 – c. 570) Buddhist philosopher. Bhāviveka is the author of the Madhyamakahrdaya (Heart of the Middle Way), its auto-commentary the Tarkajvālā (Blaze of Reasoning) and the Prajñāpradīpa (Lamp for Wisdom). In Tibetan Buddhism, Bhāviveka is regarded as the founder of the Sutra-Autonomist (svātantrika) tradition of Mādhyamika, as opposed to the Consequentialist (prāsaṅgika) Mādhyamika of Chandrakirti. According to Xuanzang, Bhāviveka was a 6th-century scholar from south India (Andhra Pradesh) who travelled north in an attempt to engage in debate with the Yogacara master Dharmapāla (who refused to meet him). Thrangu Rinpoche explains in his teaching that:
“In his commentary on the Fundamental Wisdom of the Root Way by Nagārjuna, Bhāviveka presents the relative or conventional appearances according to the Sutra school: that there are external things that are made up of indivisible atoms and these appear relatively but ultimately they cannot be established and are emptiness. So according to the Sutra school, relativel, things do exist and are made up of atoms, but he taught the ultimate view according to the Middle Way.
When the master Bhāviveka of the Sutra autonomous school presented the relative according to the sutra school and the ultimate according to the Middle Way he divided it into the approximate/specified (nam-drang) and unapproximate/non-specified (nam-drang-ma-yinpa) emptiness. So there are two ways of presenting emptiness: the approximate and the unapproximate emptiness. When we talk about the approximated emptiness this is how we cling to things as existing. When we come to understand that ultimately things do not exist, that is the unapproximate emptiness. Things relatively exist and ultimately they do not exist. So there is a distinction, there is the specifying/categorisation of it into the existing and the non-existing. So this is the specifying of emptiness, that is the approximate emptiness.
Yet, when we transcend that view and come to the actual emptiness, the unapproximate/unspecific emptiness then we cannot say that things exist and we cannot say that they do not exist, we are free of all the extremes of things either being something or nothing. That is the unspecified emptiness. where we say if something exists then there has to be a nothing, if there is nothing there has to be something, and they work in balance. The unspecified emptiness does not do that and directly just transcends these extremes of either being something or being nothing.”
The Yogācāra-Autonomist Mādhyamika – Śāntarakṣita (Zhiwa-Tso)
Then Thrangu Rinpoche discusses the view of Śāntarakṣita (ཞི་བ་འཚོ་, Zhiwa Tsho) (725–788) who was a philosopher who studied at Nalanda monastery under Jñānagarbha. He was invited to Tibet by King Trisong Detsen where he founded the temple and monastery of Samyé and ordained the first seven Tibetan monks, thus establishing the Tibetan Sangha, according to Nagārjuna’s Sarvastivadin tradition. He worked extensively to uphold and maintain the Buddhist teachings, and so began to establish the Buddha dharma in Tibet. His Mādhyamika view is most clearly outlined in his Madhyamakālaṃkāra (The Ornament of the Middle Way) and his own commentary on that text, the Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti (The Auto-Commentary on The Ornament of the Middle Way). Śāntarakṣita is not the first Buddhist thinker to attempt a synthesis of Mādhyamika thought with Yogācāra. Though Śāntarakṣita is often regarded as the leading exponent of this approach, earlier figures such as Vimuktisena, Srigupta and Śāntarakṣita’s teacher Jñānagarbha had already written from a similar syncretic perspective. This philosophical approach is known as Yogācāra-Mādhyamika or Yogācāra-Swatantra-Mādhyamika in Tibetan Buddhism.
Rinpoche transmits the words of the Magic Key commentary, which says:
“Then there is the Yogacara master Śāntarakṣita who presents the relative according to the mind-only, and the ultimate according to the middle way. He teaches temporarily that all phenomena are specified emptiness, but they are ultimately resolved to be unspecific emptiness.”
Thrangu Rinpoche then mentions the text by Śāntarakṣita called Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra) and advises everyone to read it :
“Generally, when we talk about the treatises of the Middle Way we often mention the Introduction to the Middle Way or Entering the Middle Way as translated by Chandrakirti, but there is also the Ornament of the Middle Way by Śāntarakṣita. Entering the Middle Way doesn’t really present or teach any gradations of it. It does not say that things relatively exist but ultimately do not exist. It does not have any sort of progression to go through, it just goes straight for the teaching of emptiness as it is. But in the Ornament of the Middle Way, first it teaches how things exist relatively and then it teaches how they are emptiness. In this way it is teaching the emptiness that distinguishes between the existence and non-existence. Then, after you understand that approximate emptiness it comes to teach the unapproximate emptiness. So it has this easy progression and clear logic and it is very easy to understand and so it is something that is really helpful for developing our comprehension of it.”
He also mentions how Śāntarakṣita was particularly helpful and important for the spread of the secret mantra of Vajrayana in Tibet.
[Note: When Buddhism was established in Tibet, the primary philosophic viewpoint established there was that of Śāntarakṣita (725–788), a synthesis of Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and Buddhist logic called Yogācāra-Mādhyamaka.]
Kamalaśīla and the debate with Hashang Mahayana
Then Thrangu Rinpoche moves onto the third eastern abbot, Kamalaśīla ( པདྨའི་ངང་ཚུལ་, Pemé Ngang Tsul) (c. 740-795), also an Indian Buddhist of Nalanda and who accompanied Śāntarakṣita (725–788) to Tibet at the request of King Trisong Detsen.
Rinpoche explains that:
“When Śāntarakṣita was about to pass away, he said that the dharma was really spreading very well in Tibet but in the future there would be an obstacle that would become a difficulty and that would not be presented by a non-Buddhist but by a Buddhist who was teaching something that actually did not fit with the Buddhist view. So he predicted that this would happen. As he predicted, there was a teacher called Hashang Mahayana who came. He was someone who was a scholar and had some meditation practice. When he came to Tibet he said “well you know there are two different paths that you can follow. There is the gradual path and there is the instantaneous path now Śāntarakṣita was teaching you all the gradual path. but I am going to teach you the instantaneous path and this instantaneous path which is that whatever thought it is that happens it does not matter. It is like you have the sun and clouds if you have a white cloud it keeps the sun from shining, if you have a black cloud that keeps the sun from shining, and so they are both the same. In the same way whether if you have a virtuous thought it is a fault, if you have a non-virtuous thought it is a fault. So it is better just to rest in meditation without any thoughts at all. ” So that is what the Hashang Mahayana said.
So this tradition spread and then there became a lot of debates and conflict between the two. In order to take care of these debates then actually Śāntarakṣita had foreseen this would happen and he left a testament saying that when this a problem occurs then you should call my student Kamalaśīla from India and have him deal with the situation. So, according to the testament of Śāntarakṣita, they invited Kamalaśīla to come and he met the Hashang Mahayana and won the debate. Then Kamalaśīla continued teaching and he taught in the tradition of Śāntarakṣita and there were no longer any obstacles that prevented that tradition from spreading.”
[Note: Most Tibetan sources state that the debate was decided in Kamalaśīla’s favour (though many Chinese sources claim Moheyan won) and Moheyan was required to leave the country and that all sudden-enlightenment texts were gathered and destroyed by royal decree. This was a pivotal event in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, which would afterward continue to follow the late Indian model with only minor influence from China. Nevertheless, Chan texts were produced until the 10th century in Tibet, which casts doubt on these Tibetan sources. It is also said that following his victory, Kamalasila was murdered by partisans of Moheyan’s position in Tibet who killed him by squeezing his kidneys. Not very Buddhist if true!]
Rinpoche then continues to explain the view held by Kamalasila :
Kamalasila also wrote a text which is called something like the Three stages of the path of meditation (Bhāvanākrama, Gom Rim Sum). It teaches the first beginning stages, the intermediate stages, and the final advanced stages. I think it has already been translated into English, if you could read this translation of Kamalasila’s teachings on the stages of meditation then this is something that is really good and helpful for your meditation. It presents the meditation according to the view of the sutra school. It does not teach the view of the Vajrayana, or the view of Mahayana, or the Mahamudra. It teaches the view of the sutra school, but it is really very clear and it is very good.”
[Note: According to Martin T. Adam “taken as a whole the Bhāvanākramas appear to constitute a kind of apology or justification for a gradualist approach to the Mahayana Buddhist goal of Awakening.”]
The two Autonomist Schools and distinguishing the two truths of relative and ultimate – causal middle way of post-meditation, or path middle way of differentiation
Thrangu Rinpoche concludes the teaching with the view of the two higher Autonomist schools in the Magic Key commentary:
“The text continues at the “First both of them place emphasis on the approximated ultimate and then distinguish the two truths. They assert that ultimately all phenomena do not exist, but conventionally they exist. Thus they are known as the causal middle way of post-meditation, or the path middle way of differentiation.”
So, first both the Sutra-Autonomy school and the Yogacara-Autonomy school place emphasis on the approximate emptiness and distinguish the two truths. They say that ultimately things do not exist but conventionally they do. Thus they are called the causal middle way of post-meditation. “When they present emptiness and the ultimate truth then they are presenting both the approximated emptiness and the unapproximated emptiness. They distinguish between these two when coming to understand the approximated emptiness they say that all phenomena are emptiness but conventionally they do appear they do exist and so they distinguish between the two truths. That is why in they are known as the causal middle way of post-meditation or the path middle way of differentiation in that they differentiate the two truths. So that is the presentation of the autonomy school. Next is the consequentialists.”
In Session 6, Rinpoche continues with the view of the Consequentialist Middle Way school. More on that in the next post!