རྫོགས་སངས་སྐུ་ནི་འཕྲོ་ཕྱིར་དང༌། ། དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་དབྱེར་མེད་ཕྱིར་དང༌། །
རིགས་ཡོད་ཕྱིར་ན་ལུས་ཅན་ཀུན། ། རྟག་ཏུ་སངས་རྒྱས་སྙིང་པོ་ཅན། །
Because the perfect buddhas’s kaya is all-pervading,
Because reality is undifferentiated,
And because they possess the potential,
Beings always have the buddha nature.
–Maitreya, Sublime Continuum, I, 27
“These explanations are taught in the third turning the wheel of dharma and contain irrefutable statements of the definitive meaning, which explain that Buddha nature has been present from the beginning in the continuum of all sentient beings.“
—Khenpo Gangshar in his Magic Key commentary
“When the Buddha taught the three different wheels of dharma, the second wheel of dharma is teaching that everything is emptiness. But then in the last turning of the wheel of the dharma he taught that emptiness is actually also the clear wisdom awareness (selwa yeshe), the buddha nature. It is the essence of the buddha that is present within the dharma nature. So, for that reason, when you ask what are the sutras the Shentong view (empty-of-other view is based upon? They are based on the sutras of the third and the final turning of the wheel of dharma.”
—9th Thrangu Rinpoche teaching on Magic Key commentary (Day Seven)
Today, for the great Buddhist event of Chokhor Duchen (commemorating when the Buddha first turned the wheel of Dharma), I offer this overview and downloadable transcript of Day 7 of 9th Thrangu Rinpoche’s teaching on the Magic Key commentary by Khenpo Gangshar on the different schools and tenets given in 2009. The following day 8, which is also on the Empty-of-Other view, will hopefully be posted tomorrow for the final day of the 49-day ritual of 9th Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche’s parinirvana.
The Great Middle-Way Empty-of-Other is particularly popular and advocated by the main Tibetan lineages of Kagyu, Jonang, Nyingma and Sakya. As was mentioned before in the previous teaching (Day 6) Thrangu Rinpoche gave on the Prasangika Madhyamika view (which came to be the ‘dominant’ school of thought in Tibet when the Gelug/Dalai Lamas seized complete control of Tibet in the 17th Century) the Zhentong advocates, dating back to 3rd Karmapa Rangjung Dorje and the Jonang master, Kunkhyen Dolpopa, assert more than just ‘mere emptiness’ and that the Buddha Nature is not empty of its self. It has its own eternal, ever-present essence beyond conditioned phenomena and consciousness: luminous clarity awareness in union with emptiness.
In these teachings, Thrangu Rinpoche reads and explains the section of Khenpo Gangshar’s commentary that expertly and concisely sums up the Empty-of-Other view and its source in the Buddha Nature Sutras, such as the Sutra Teaching the Element, the Sutra Requested by the Goddess Shrimala (Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra ལྷ་མོ་དཔལ་ཕྲེང་གི་སེང་གེའི་སྒྲའི་མདོ་) , the Mahaparinivana Sutra, and commentaries such as The Sublime Continuum (Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra; ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཆོས་, Gyu Lama) taught by Asanga to bodhisattva Maitreyanātha.
The Buddha Nature sutras are part of the third wheel turning of Dharma, which is said to deal with the definitive meaning (nge-don), whereas the Prajnaparamita teachings such as the Heart Sutra are said to be about the relative truth and reality and thus not definitive, and the provisional meaning (drang-don). However, Taranatha (a Jonang Zhentong advocate, asserts that even the Heart Sutra teaches the ultimate definitive view as being Empty-of-Other and that the ultimate essence is not empty of self).
The Day Seven session can be summarised as follows;
- Empty-of-self (Prasangika Madhyamika) view and the importance of studying it yet seeing its limitations in relation to the ultimate nature
- The three turnings of the wheel of Dharma – the third wheel and Empty-of-Other (Zhentong) view
- The implied/hidden teachings of Buddha Nature in the second wheel turning.
- The meaning of Sugata, gone from bliss to suffering, and using the seed of Sugata Garbha well
- Buddha Nature – like a folded up map of the universe we have not opened.
- Nine analogies for Buddha Nature in the Supreme Continuum – gold buried beneath mud/trash.
- Recognising ordinary mind – the pith instruction from Gampopa.
Sharing analogies from Maitreya’s important commentary The Sublime Continnum, Rinpoche explains that at the moment, our innate Buddha Nature is like a heap of gold buried under a pile of rubbish or a beggar’s hovel, or having a flower seed that we have not planted or tried to grow and care for.
Thrangu Rinpoche also shared an anecdote about a pith instruction given to the well-known Kagyu master, Phagmo Drupa (1110-1170) by Je Gampopa, about how the Buddha Nature is nothing complicated or sophisticated, it is a very ‘ordinary’ down-to earth mind, free of concepts and full of the Buddha Nature qualities, ever present at all times.
May we all discover the priceless gold within all our minds, hidden by the rubbish of the afflictive mental states!
Music? Gold by Spandau Ballet, You Got the Silver by the Rolling Stones and Treasure Hiding by the Cocteau Twins.
Summary and Overview
The importance of studying the Empty-of-Self view
Thrangu Rinpoche summarised the Empty-of-Self view again and then explained why it is important to study it and not just discard it as bad or useless:
“We really do have to study the self-empty view, it’s very important for us to really establish and internalize that all phenomena are emptiness. The Buddha did teach the two types of selflessness, the Buddha taught the sixteen types of emptiness he taught that all phenomena are emptiness. So, for this reason really coming to understand and internalize that all phenomena are emptiness is extremely important. It is because of thinking of things that we wander through samsara, we have the confused appearances of samsara through that we wander in samsara.”
Yet:
“When we come to understand this emptiness, if we just think that this emptiness is mere blank emptiness, that’s a mistake. We have to realize that the ultimate nature of the dharmata, the way things are, has the clear wisdom, so we need to realize that and that is why the empty-of-other, the Shentong is so important.”
Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma – lineage and textual sources of Empty-of-Other view
Today, is called the Chokhor Duchen (Turning the Dharma Commemoration) in the Tibetan calendar and it commemorates the ‘turnings of the wheel of Dharma’ by the Buddha. Traditionally there are said to be ‘three turnings’. This was spoken about in Thrangu Rinpoche’s teaching:
“When the Buddha taught the three different wheels of dharma, the second wheel of dharma is teaching that everything is emptiness. But then in the last turning of the wheel of the dharma he taught that emptiness is actually also the clear wisdom awareness (selwa yeshe), the buddha nature. It is the essence of the buddha that is present within the dharma nature. So, for that reason, when you ask what are the sutras the Shentong view (empty-of-other view is based upon? They are based on the sutras of the third and the final turning of the wheel of dharma.”
Thrangu Rinpoche then reads Khenpo Gangshar’s Commentary regarding the lineage and Indian textual sources of the Empty-of-Other view:
“As it says in the text, Buddha taught this view as can be seen in the Sutra of Teachings on the Element (Kham Tenpai Do), the Mahaparanirvana sutra and the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra (ལྷ་མོ་དཔལ་ཕྲེང་གི་སེང་གེའི་སྒྲའི་མདོ་) and others. So these teachings of the empty-of-other middle way are clearly taught in detail in the third and final turning of the wheel of dharma. Then, the great Maitreya explained this clearly in his treatise The Supreme Continuum, in Sanskrit, the Mahayana Uttaratantra and the rest of his five great works. Then, masters such as Asanga and Vasubandhu spread these teachings and they flourished. As it says here:
“In Tibet the great masters of other emptiness include such masters as the great adept Yumowa, the omniscient Dolpo Sangye, Jetsun Tāranātha, the omniscient Rangjung Dorje, third Karmapa, Khatog Mahapandita Getse Gyurme Wangchog, Gyurme Tenpa Namgyal, Shechen Mahapandita, Ontrul Thutob Namgyal, Dodrub Jigme Trinley, esepcially Mingling Terdag Yabse, and Dharma lord Longchenpa and so forth.”
So these are all the names of the masters who taught the empty-of-other middle way view.”
The implied/hidden teachings of Buddha Nature in the second wheel turning
Thrangu Rinpoche explains how the ultimate teachings are hidden (or not explicit) in some Sutra teachings (this is something Jetsun Taranatha talks about too in his commentary on the Heart Sutra):
“The middle turning of the wheel of dharma explicitly teaches emptiness. Yet, as it says in the commentary, the other teachings are implied and are somewhat hidden. It is not said that the buddha nature exists, it’s not said that it doesn’t exist, it’s just sort of hidden in there. So, it’s implicit in there as the teaching of the Buddha Nature. This is the actual aspect of luminous clarity that is the Buddha Nature which is implicit within the second wheel.
However, this is actually explicitly taught in the sutras of the third turning of the wheel of dharma and commentaries such as The Sublime Continuum (Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra; ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཆོས་, Gyu Lama) taught by Asanga to bodhisattva Maitreyanātha.”
The meaning of Sugata, gone from suffering to bliss, and using the seed of Sugatagarbha well
Thrangu Rinpoche then explains the meaning of the word for Buddha Nature in Sanskrit and Tibetan:
“The word for Buddha Nature in Sanskrit is Sugatagarbha, and in Tibetan Dewai Shegpa Nyingpo . So, Sugata means sukkah, bliss or happiness, and gata means to have gone. So we have two things: we have happiness and bliss and suffering. The one that we don’t want is the suffering, and the one that we want is the bliss. So we want to get the bliss and we need to bring ourselves bliss, we need to rid ourselves of suffering.
Right now the place we are in is samsara, and what do we have? Well most of what we have is the suffering we don’t have very much bliss. We have more suffering. So, we need to attain that bliss and that bliss that we need to attain is the bliss of the state of Buddhahood, the bliss of the ultimate result. We need to go from this place of suffering in samsara to the place of bliss that is Buddhahood. We need to cross over this and we need to get rid of all our suffering, we need to throw away our suffering, we need to gain the happiness and bliss, and come to this place of bliss. So who has already gone there? It is the Buddha Shakyamuni and all of the other buddhas of the past and all the buddhas of the present, they have gone to the bliss. Sugata means they have gone to the bliss (dewa shegpa). “
Nine analogies for Buddha Nature in the Supreme Continuum – gold buried beneath mud/trash
This is followed by an explanation of the hidden Buddha Nature:
“The Buddha Nature is taught in the Supreme Continuum by Maitreya through nine analogies. They’re generally pretty clear but the easiest of these analogies to understand is the big hunk of gold. There’s the analogy that there’s this big hunk of gold that someone just throws away falls on the ground, falls in a little hole gets covered by some leaves and some dirt. Then the guy goes away and then over the time of years you know over the course of years it gets covered up with more dirt and trash and stuff. There’s this big hunk of gold there, we just don’t know it’s there. So people not knowing throw trash on top of it. Now has the nature of this gold changed in any way? It hasn’t changed in any way. It’s still gold it’s still valuable still useful as gold but can we actually use it? We can’t actually use it. It’s there for hundreds and even thousands of years without changing but does it help anyone? It doesn’t because it’s stuck underneath the ground. No one knows that it’s there.”
“So it’s the same way there with us, there is the Buddha Nature present within all sentient beings but for millions of years we haven’t really seen it and we haven’t been able to use it. We haven’t known it’s there. Then the Buddha found it and he said ‘Oh all these other people have this too, they’ve got this same treasure’. So if you use it, if you look for it, if you find it then you can use it and you can do this too. So you need to meditate and practice, until you get to this point. So, in this way we find the dharma nature, we find the union of clarity and emptiness that has been present in our mind from the very beginning.”
What is Buddha Nature like? Maitreya’s Sublime Continuum and the clarity-emptiness union
The next part of the commentary is about the nature of the ultimate, which is described using Maitreya’s words as the ‘unchanging dharmata’ and the clarity aspect.
“Just as is clearly explained in Maitreyanata’s Supreme Continuum of the Mahayana. (Maitreyanate is just another name just another way of saying Maitreya), and especially in the glorious Kalachakra and other tantras. According to these, all sentient beings have from the very beginning had the nature of being awakened”. From the very beginning the character of the dharma nature has never been sullied by any stains. So that samsara cannot be established as even a name. All nirvana phenomena are permanent stable and unchanging. they do not change in any way. They have been inherently present in the nature of the mind from the very beginning.”
In this part of the commentary it talks about how the clarity-emptiness union is inseparable like fire is inseparable from heat and unchanging like space, and not stained by temporary afflictive states. That the nature of mind is luminous clarity (o-sel).
Not recognising ordinary mind – Je Gampopa’s pith instruction
Thrangu Rinpoche then explains the difference in method and focus in terms of Sutra and Tantra/Vajrayana practice:
“In terms of the sutras we do this through through inference, we do this in the post-meditation through inference we analyse this. In terms of the secret mantra of Vajrayana we follow the instructions of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, we look at the nature of the mind. When we do that, we see the way the ordinary mind (tha-mel) is.”
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