The Sa Skya Pandita, The White Panacea, And Clerical Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis

8/9/2019 The Sa Skya Pandita, The White Panacea, And Clerical Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis

1/28

“The Sa-skya Pandita, the White Panacea, and Clerical Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis” by Robert Mayer. Tibet Journal 22(3): 79-105, 1997


2/28

Review Articles

The Sa-skya

Pa-/:uJita

the White Panacea, and Clerical

Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis

obert Mayer

Enlightenment y a Single Means: Tibetan Controversies on the

Self-Sufficient White Remedy (dkar po chig thub) y David

Jack

son,

Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der

Wissenschaften,

Vienna, 1994. 220pp.

This excellent book comprises a

study

of one of the more notorious dis

putes

within

Tibetan

Buddhist

history, namely the fierce criticisms level

led

by the

Sa-skya

Pandita

Kun-dga rgyal-mtshan (1182-1251) against

certain bKa

brgyud pa

teachings, especially those formulated

by

Mi-Ia ras

pa s spiritual successor sCam-po-pa bsod-nams rin-chen (1079-1153). This

dispute was one of

the

more significant wrangles within Tibetan eccle

siastical history, and even now can occasionally arise as a cause of mental

anguish and turmoil for bKa brgyud pa and Sa-skya-pa devotees alike.

What distinguishes David Jackson s treatment of this sensitive subject is

the meticulous precision and accuracy of his scholarship, which succeeds

in yielding a superb economy and clarity of presentation

even

while

marshalling a

great

number

of different primary sources. Consistent

with

his previous published offerings, Jackson s ethos is always to inform his

readers of important issues

within

Tibetan Buddhism, never merely

to

impress

and

overawe them with

any

magisterial displays of his

own

schol

arly virtuosity.

s

before, Jackson succeeds impressively in his genuinely

scholarly purpose.

The structure and layout of the book is characteristically well-planned.

The very useful and comprehensive table of contents at the front of the

book is reminiscent of a traditional Tibetan

sa-bead

in

the

exactness of its

tabulation. The actual subject matter is initially approached with Jackson S

introduction to the book (pp.1-8); this is followed by seven chapters of

Jackson s analysis, each

chapter

being

subdivided

into a number of short

sub-sections (pp.9-146); finally, Jackson S analysis is followed

by

extensive

presentations of primary texts and translations representing both sides of

the dispute (pp.147-188). The bibliography

and

indexes make up the re

mainder of

the book

(pp.190-220). There are also five full-page line draw

ings and a

number

of smaller illustrations.


3/28

80

THE

TIBET

JOURNAL

THE QUESTIO:\, OF REFLEXIVITY

In his introduction to the book, Jackson explains

that

his

purpose

is

to

expand on the partial

knowledge

of this issue already presented

by

previ

ous

recent studies, through a systematic presentation of all the relevant

primary sources from three of the main protagonists, namely sGam-po-pa,

the bKa'-brgyud-pa master Zhang Tshal-pa (1123-1193),

and

the Sa-skya

Pandita himself. These

important

primary sources have

never

before been

systematically presented. Laudably, Jackson also comments at the outset

(p.6) that since his own attention has for so

many

years now been devot

ed to

the

person of the Sa-skya Pandita Kun-dga' rgyal-mtshan, despite

his best efforts he cannot confidently claim to have done full justice to the

position of

the

Sa-skya

Pandita s

bKa'-brgyud-pa opponents. Thus

Jack-

son gives discreet but unambiguous

warning

to his readers

that

he main

tains particular affiliations

and

loyalties to the figure of Sa-pan, and that

his readers

should

take heed of this fact as

they study

his book. SUch

reflexivity is

very

much in line

with

general methodological developments

within

the

broader

contemporary academic world. To such contemporary

thinking,

the

claim to a completely objective

standpoint on

such pre

dominantly

ideological matters is

highly

problematic; a methodologically

sounder

and intellectually more honest strategy is to

know

one's own

ideological predispositions, and build a general awareness of them into

one s analysis. In my view, this more contemporary approach constitutes

a

great improvement

on the sometimes implausible claims to a totally

detached

objectivity still implicitly or

even

explicitly made

by

some other

Buddhological authors, whose ideological biases (whether Buddhist,

Christian or whatever) are nonetheless quite

transparent

to their

more

learned readers

at

least,

even

if

not

to

the

general public (who might

therefore be deceived). Perhaps in this context the reviewer should. also

warn

his readers

that

while, like David Jackson, he has affiliations to the

Sa-skya-pa school, he also has

an

interest in the other schools of Tibetan

Buddhism, particularly

the

rNying-ma-pa

and

the Ris-med movement,

thus including

also the bKa' -brgyud-pa.

SA-PAN'S CRITIQUE

In

Chapter One,

Jackson sets

out

some of the key offending items

from

sGam-po-pa's writings, most

notably

from the chapter

on

Perfect Wisdom

(Ch.17) in his

Thar-pa rin-po-che i

rgyan (translated

into

English

by

H V

Guenther

as The Jewel rnament of

Liberation).

This famous text comprises

a systematic stages of

the

path (lam-rim) type of presentation of the basic

Mahayana Buddhist teachings drawn mainly from the old bKa'-gdams-pa

tradition of Atisa, most of it quite uncontroversial; it is only one sub

section

within

its Ch.17

that

contains some ideas

which

were castigated


4/28

REVIEW ARTICLES 81

by Sa-pan as heretical. In fact, Sa-pan not only believed these ideas

were

wrong

in

themselves: he also thought they represented the views of the

Chinese

Buddhist

master Ho-shang Mo-ho-yen, and for Sa-pan any

Buddhist doctrine of Chinese origin

must

be heretical by definition. In

other contexts, Sa-pan also accused sCam-po-pa of introducing substantial

doctrinal innovations: again, for Sa-pan, all substantial doctrinal inno

vations

were

heresy by definition. In general, Sa-pan

thought that

sCam

po-pa had

repeatedly

transgressed boundaries

between

the distinctive

methods appropriate to the causal vehicle

rgyu mtshan-nyidlphyi i

theg-pa)

of

sutra and those appropriate to the fruitional vehicle Cbras-bu

theg-pa)

of

tantra

d.

Bentor 1992 . These

boundaries

and distinctions were held to

be

inviolable

within

Sa-pan s particular scholastic system.

In Chapter

2,

Jackson illustrates how sCam-po-pa and his school of meditators main

tained a somewhat rhetorical critique of any purely intellectual path to

enlightenment, and how this critique was sometimes

prone

to err into a

vulgar and provocative disparagement of Buddhist scholarship as a whole.

In Chapter 3, Jackson describes the figure of

Zhang

Tshal-pa, a more

controversial bKa

-brgyud-pa

master

who

is often seen as a particular

target of Sa-pan s criticisms.

TH

BKA -GOAMS-PA QUESTION

The arguments given in the context of sCam-po-pa s treatment of Perfect

Wisdom

in

his Thar-rgyan are

important

for the entire dispute, and Jack

son describes them in detail. On the one hand Sa-pan has no quibble

with sCam-po-pa s main presentat ion on how to cultivate Perfect Wisdom,

where sCam-po-pa follows the

standard

Mahayana causal vehicle me

thods. The subsection Sa-pan objects

to

is

the

one concerned

with

rjes-thob

or post-meditation, i.e., the one

which

gives instruction on how the bKa

brgyud-pa

meditator who

has already achieved some direct

insight

into

reality should sustain

that

realisation after

or

in

between

periods of formal

practice. An

interesting

aspect of this dispute

which

(quite

understand

ably falls outside Jackson s remit is the

question

of the possible signi

ficance of

bKa -gdams-pa ideas

within

this controversy. So,

although

Jackson had no need to deal with this topic in his book, and although I

am

a non-specialist in this field, I

would

like to raise the issue

here

in a

highly preliminary fashion (even if

with

such little erudition), because I

suspect it might in due course transpire to be an issue of some interest

that will eventually need to be addressed comprehensively.

In his treatment of rjes-thob in Ch.17 of the Thar-rgyan,sCam-po-pa seems

on the face of it to give a

somewhat

similar instruction to those

found

in

surviving traditions descending from the old bKa -gdams-pa tradition,

such as

the

Seven Points of

Mind

Training

blo-sbyong

don-bdun).

However,


5/28

82

THE TIBET JOURNAL

sGam-po-pa seems

to

add

something

that I have not

found

in

the

Seven

Points of

Mind

Training (although, in

the

face of conflicting evidence and

with

poor library facilities, I am not yet clear if it occured in other bKa _

gdams-pa teachings

or

not). sGam-po-pa advises,

...

[between sessions],

by

seeing

all things as

enchantment,

merits such as liberality are accumulated

to the best of our power, compared

with

the Seven Point Mind Training,

which reads, more simply, In

between

sessions, consider yourself a child

of illusion. l Of course, it is

the

additional gloss expressed in

the

second

part

of sGam-po-pa's sentence which Sa-pan finds particularly dangerous.

Sa-pan is aware that sGam-po-pa evidently sees this context of rjes-thob

as

one

in which his students could or should move entirely

beyond

the

causal vehicle point of view, in

which

deliberate efforts are made to cul-

tivate virtue. Rather, sGam-po-pa implies that during

rjes-thob,

they should

take up a truitional vehicle point of view, in

which

no such deliberate

efforts

at

cultivating virtue are made, but in

which

such virtues will arise

spontaneously as epiphenomena of absorption in the absolute. In keeping

with this view,

then,

sGam-po-pa quite explicitly identifies the meditation

on emptiness to be

done

during

rjes-thob

as meditation

on the

true nature

of

mind

(sems-nyid),

which

for

him

signifies the

highest

reality, or, more

importantly, which he sees as synonymous

with

the absolute bodhicitta.

Later on, this standpoint of avoiding deliberate efforts in the cultivation

of virtue during rjes-thob

became

even

more

vehemently supported

by

later commentators of sGam-po-pa's school, such as Dwags-po bKra-shis

rnam-rgyal (1512-1587) (Lhalungpa 1986: 252).

So here we can discern

the

crux of the doctrinal dispute: in line with

the Tibetan yogic or meditational traditions in general (sgrub-brgyud), but

in

sharp

contrast to many of the more scholarly traditions

such

as Sa-

pan's, sGam-po-pa believes that relative bodhicitta and absolute bodhicitta

(i.e., compassion and wisdom) are, from the fruitional

point

of view at

least, to be considered aspects or parts of a single undivided reality, an in

herently

indivisible union of wisdom and means, primordially

united

and

impossible

to

separate.

Hence it

is that sGam-po-pa concludes that from

direct absorption within emptiness in this fruitional context, which he sees

as identical to

dwelling

in the

absolute bodhicitta

or

the nature

of mind

(sems-nyid), all the virtues of

the

relative bodhicitta, such as generosity

etc., will emerge spontaneously. This is of course a view similar to that

of

the tathagatagarbha

doctrine, which sGam-po-pa strongly emphasises in the

opening

chapter

of his book. Thus sGam-po-pa believes

that

this absorp

tion within emptiness from a strictly fruitional point of view (which is of

course made possible only in the context of the post-meditation experience

already

having

arisen), can become a self-sufficient practice

within

that

context (and that context alone):

by

maintaining this single practice

of


6/28

REVIEW ARTICLES

83

continually dwelling within

the

absolute bodhicitta during rjes-thob all

necessary spiritual developments for that phase of practice will spon

taneously arise. Presumably, however, sCam-po-pa does not

hold

this to

be

true

when

meditation on emptiness is done at other times, and es

pecially

when

it

is

done

from

the

causal

point

of

view

(i.e., for those

minds that

have not yet attained the

ability to dwell

continuously and

directly upon or

within

non-conceptual absolute bodhicitta

through

the

power of yogic practices but

which

still rely on conceptual analyses of

emptiness), d. his

own

previous analysis of Perfect Wisdom earlier on

in

Chapter

17 that

Sa-pan accepts.

To my mind,

one

can easily see how Sa-pan came to see sCam-po-pa's

statements as potentially dangerous. Sa-pan did

not

share sCam-po-pa's

view of tathagatagarbha (which, as far as I know, was broadly in accord

with

the

later gzhan stong interpretation), nor sCam-po-pa's closely related

view that

wisdom

and compassion are inherently inseparable. On

the

contrary, like

many

other later Mahayana commentators of more scholarly

and less yogic outlook, Sa-pan favoured a much more apophatic descrip

tion of emptiness. Because it placed little emphasis on the

notion

of an

immanent absolute, this apophatic stream of thought within later Maha

yana

had

inevitably become

highly

sensitive to

the notion

that

the

sixth

paramita of

wisdom

was self-sufficient, and

that

the

other

five perfections

need not

be

deliberately cultivated, since they would all follow spontan

eously from

the

practice of

wisdom

(Williams 1989: 44 . Moreover, such

apophatic

thinkers

usually favoured

the

Perfection of Wisdom literature

as paradigmatic

within

Buddhism; and

while

there are indeed some pas

sages in the voluminous Prajntiptiramita slltras

and

in Nagarjuna s writings

that can

be construed

as describing meditation

on

emptiness alone as a

completely self-sufficient practice,2 nevertheless

the broader thrust

of

the

Prtijntiparamitti

tradition is more usually seen as perfecting the first five

paramitas with the

sixth (i.e.,

the view

of emptiness),

and

this process

clearly implies that definite efforts

must be made

in generosity, patience,

morality etc., which are

then

to

be

joined

with

Wisdom.

Civen such

doc

trinal presuppositions, then, Sa-pan presumably feared that to advocate

taking meditation on

the

Perfection of Wisdom alone as a single self

sufficient spiritual panacea,

might

undermine the

very

foundations

of

the

altruistic

bodhisattva path

so fundamental to the teachings of the Prtijnti

paramita literature itself.

But was sCam-po-pa really advocating

any

such abandonment of altru

ism? Manifestly not: his description of meditation on emptiness

was

made

within a

very

specific context of rjes-thob and the entirety of his Thar

rgyan is

devoted

precisely to a most exhaustive exposition of

the bodhi

sattva's altruism, explaining

how

one

can

and must

make supreme,


7/28

8 THE TIBET

JOURNAL

deliberate efforts in love, compassion, generosity, patience, morality etc

Does that imply Sa-pan's critique was merely quixotic or worse? Although

I feel that his different doctrinal presuppositions

put

Sa-pan at cross

purposes to

sCam-po-pa

in important respects, nevertheless, like Jackson,

I believe his critique

was

not

futile: precisely

by

making his critique

so

forceful, Sa-pan effectively closed the door to any later misunderstandings

of sCam-po-pa's teachings that might seek to extend them and apply them

out of the context of rjes-thob (it is a fact that to this day, bKa' -brgyud-pa

masters still invariably find themselves compelled to respond to Sa-pan's

criticisms ).

To better understand the deeper significance of Sa-pan's polemics, one

can look at a historical example: the marriage of the military arts in Japan

(such as

swordsmanship)

with the Zen cultivation of Mahayana emptiness

alone,

unaccompanied

by

any

deliberate cultivation of compassion, or

Tantric transmission. In medieval Japan, the purpose of Zen swordsman

ship

and the

other Zen martial arts for

their

samurai exponents

was

gen

erally little more than

an attempt

to maximise the fighting

man's

effective

ness, to train a

warrior

through

Zen

meditative techniques to become a

fearless, unthinking and spontaneously effective killing machine. In this

training, compassion

was apparently

not

a central value;

on

the

contrary,

its predominant feature was that the Japanese warrior ethos of blood and

honour

bushido)

comprehensively clothed itself in the language of Buddh

ist Emptiness (Hoover 1978: 57-67).

To

my mind, this seems to afford an

illustration of how,

under

extreme duress, teachings

on

emptiness as a

self-sufficient panacea are probably more easily prone to a misconstrual

that can subvert the compassionate ethos central to the

Prajnaparamita

tradition.

3

In this context, it is also noteworthy that Jackson follows several later

Tibetan sources which suggest that the actual occasion of Sa-pan's critique

was his personal encounter

with

the thriving spiritual heritage of Curu

Zhang, founder of the Tshal-pa tradition, an allegedly eccentric bKa'

brgyud-pa

siddha

who had

led his followers

in

military battles

and

skir

mishes

with

nearby princes, bandits

and

brigands, in his attempts to bring

order

to the lawless

lands around

sKyid-chu.

Zhang is

said to have fur

ther

developed

and

extended

sCam-po-pa's self-sufficient panacea teach

ings,

and was

also (in)famous for teaching

the

battlefield

situation

as a

meditation. The saintly Karma-pa Dus-gsum mKhyen-pa (1110-1193) is said

to

have

eventually

persuaded Zhang

to

adopt

a more peaceful style.

sCam-po-pa

presents

his views

on rjes-thob

with a

long

string of quota

tions from a variety of sources including both sutras

and

tantras, but gives

the

last word to Atisa: And Atisa declared, 'When the mind is composed

and

centred

on

the one, there

is

no

need

to

work

for

the good

with

body


8/28

REVIEW

ARTICLES

85

or

~ p e e c h '

(trans.

Guenther 1971: 224).

5

It is interesting

how

sGam-po-pa's

interpretation of Atisa seems to be so normative

within the

sgrub-brgyud

traditions of Tibetan

Buddhism

although

r

am

not

clear if dGe-Iugs-pa

sources accept this. For example, a more modern author such as dPal-sprul

(1808-1887), in

his

Kun-bzang bla-ma'i zhal-Iung,

reports a

question-and

ansv,;er session between Atisa

and

his

leading

Tibetan disciple, 'Brom-ston

(1005-1064), which

likewise

puts the dkar-po chig-thub

position expounded

by sCam-po-pa directly into the

mouth

of Atisa himself.

The context is

dPal-sprul's discussion of the perfection of wisdom,

but

specifically

within

the rubric of training in the bodhicitta of application (which traditionally

implies training in the six paramitas:

bodhiprasthanacitta, d. Sik asamuccaya

8.15

and

Bodhicaryavattira

1.15;

Dayal

1978: 62).

Note

also

that

sCam-po-pa's

own sa-bead to the

Thar-rgyan

likewise places his own dkar-po

chig-thub

passages within the practice of perfect wisdom as a subsection of

bodhi

prasthtinacitta.

In his book, dPal-sprul categorises training in perfect wis

dom according to the three standard types of hearing, reflection and

meditating (srutamayf, cinttimayf, bhtivanamayf). The relevant passages attri

buted to Atisa occur in dPal-sprul's section on bhtivanamayf.

t

is worth

quoting

in

full because it

underlines

how

the

Tibetan

sgrub-brgyud

tradi

tions, who of course in key contexts tend to interpret emptiness as a

synonym for

the

absolute bodhicitta, will thereby often tend to

link

the

emptiness as a

dkar-po chig-thub

discourse with

their

often bKa'-gdams

pa-derived teachings

on bodhicitta

in general.

Now, what

Jackson does

not mention (this is

not

a fault, it falls beyond

the

scope of his under

taking) is that a characterisation of the

bodhicitta

in more general terms

as

a universal panacea is manifestly

not

limited to these Tibetan

sgrub

brgyud

traditions

alone: Santideva's

Bodhicaryavatara

1.10

& 26)

and

the

Muhayanusutralanzkara (16),

for example, also liken bodhicitta to a universal

panacea (Dayal

1978: 62;

Williams

1989: 198)?

while passages from the

Ak$ayamatinirdesa

said to be cited by Atisa give paeans of praise to bodhi

dtta

that

might easily be interpreted as amounting to the same thing.

8

Unsurprisingly, dGe-lugs-pa teachings

on

bodhicitta pick

up

this theme,

for example the present Dalai Lama writes of the bodhidtta that indeed

it

is

the

sale universal panacea (Tenzin Gyatso

1979:

112),9

here in appar

ent disagreement

with S a - p a l ~

who rejected any sort of Sole Universal

Panacea.

From a historical point of view, then, the question arises, did some of

the sgrub-brgyud traditions in general, or at least sGam-po-pa's, first adopt

or

adapt

by extension

the

single self-sufficient

remedy

imagery from the

bKa' -gdams-pa teachings

on the

cultivation of bodhicitta?

Might

it still

be

the case that meditations

on

emptiness are in general only secondarily

called a self-sufficient remedy, i.e.,

when

they are subsumed within a

prior


9/28

86 THE TIBET JOURNAL

rubric of meditation on bodhicitta, or, perhaps, where meditation on

emptiness

might

be analysed as

the highest

phase of the

training in

ap

plication

bodhicitta involving

direct meditation upon

sems nyid?

Thus the

underlying

logic of

the

sgrub brgyud

position

might

be as follows:

1 Scriptural sources describe bodhicitta as a self-sufficient remedy;

2 Meditation on emptiness as sems nyid [from a strictly resultant

point of view] is identical to dwelling

within

absolute bodhicitta

[and absolute bodhicitta inherently subsumes relative bodhi

citta];

3

therefore such meditation on emptiness is a self-sufficient

remedy.

But let us return to dPal-sprul's citation of Atisa,

within

dPal-sprul's

presentation of meditating on emptiness of which compassion is

the

very

essence as

the

quintessence of

the

practice of application bodhicitta:

Drom

Tonpa

once asked Atisha what was the ultimate of all teachings.

Of

all

teachings, the ultimate is emptiness of

which

compassion is the very essence,

replied the Master. Realization of the

truth

of emptiness, the

nature

of reality,

is like a very powerful medicine, a panacea

which

can cure every disease in

the world. t is the

remedy

for all the different negative emotions.

Why is it then, Drom Tonpa went on,

that

so

many

people who claim

to have realized emptiness have no less attachment and hatred?

Because their realization is only words, Atisha replied. Had they really

grasped

the true meaning

of emptiness, their thoughts, words and deeds

would be

as soft as

cotton wool or tsampa soup

laced

with

butter. The Master

Aryadeva

said

that even

to wonder whether

or not

all things

were empty by

nature would

make samsara fall apart.

True

realization of emptiness, therefore,

is the ultimate panacea

which

includes all the elements of the path.

How

can every

element of the path be included within the realization of

emptiness? Drom Tonpa asked.

All the elements of the path are

contained in

the six transcendent perfec

tion. Now, if you

truly

realize emptiness, you become free from attachment.

As you feel no craving, grasping or desire for anything

within or

without, you

always have transcendent generosity. Being free from grasping and attach

ment,

you

are

never

defiled

by

negative actions, so

you

always

have

tran

scendent

discipline.

Without

any concepts of and

'mine'

you

have no

an

ger, so you always

have transcendent

patience. Your

mind

made

truly

joyful

by

the realization of emptiness,

you

always have transcendent diligence. Being

free from distraction,

which

comes from

grasping at

things as solid, you al

ways

have

transcendent concentration.

As

you

do not

conceptualize anything

whatsoever in

terms of subject, object and action,

you

always

have

transcend

ent wisdom.


10/28

REVIEW ARTICLES

87

"Do

those who

have realized the

truth

become Buddhas simply by medita

ting

on

the view of emptiness?" Drom Tonpa asked.

Of

all

that

we perceive as forms and sounds there

is

nothing

that

does not

arise from

the

mind. To realize that the

mind

is awareness indivisible from

emptiness

is

the

view.

Keeping

this realization

in mind at

all times,

and

never

being distracted from

it,

is meditation. To practice the two accumulations as a

magical illusion from within that state is action.

f you

make a living experience

of this practice, it will continue in

your

dreams. f it comes in the dream state,

it will come at the

moment

of death. And if it comes at the moment of death

it will

ome

in the intermediate state. f it is present in the

intermediate

state

you may

be certain

of

attaining

supreme accomplishment" (PatruI1994: 255-6).

Summing

up

this

long quote

from Atisa, dPal-sprul concludes

that

all

84,000

doors to

the

dharma

taught

by the

Buddha

are all skilful means

to cause the bodhicitta-emptiness of which compassion is the very

essence-to

arise in us." (Patrul

1994: 256 .

Obviously, the

nub

of dPal

sprul's (and sGam-po-pa's) position is that wisdom

and

compassion are,

from

the

resultant perspective indivisibly inseparable.

Within the generality

of Buddhist

doctrine, to see

bodhicitta

as having

the nature of

both

emptiness and compassion is

not

unusual,

but

the

sgrub-brgyud

tradition

of emphasising

the

absolutely inalienable

and

in

divisible inseparability of wisdom and compassion within absolute bodhi

citta might historically derive less from the earlier Prajnaparamita scriptures

than from tathtigatagarbha doctrine, or else from texts such as the Samdhi

nirmocana Satra the original source of the distinction between ultimate

and relative bodhicittas, which defined ultimate bodhicitta as the radiant

mind of an

enlightened

being possessed of compassion. As the Yoga carin

Sthiramati saw it (following

the

Samdhinirmocana

SIUra),

"bodhicitta is

equal to

the

dharmakaya

as it manifests itself

in the human

heart" (Williams

1989: 203 . Later, the understanding of absolute bodhicitta as the ultimate

nature of

mind

primordially complete

with

all enlightened qualities,

became one of the fundamental metaphors of early rDzogs-chen writings;

for example, the

Sems-sde

series is precisely

named

after such meditation

on bodhicitta as

the

absolute (sems

byang-chub

sems);10 and of course,

the similarities of

such

Sems-sde doctrines to sGam-po-pa's teachings

on

sems-nyid

was

not

lost

upon

Sa-pan,

who

held

the

rDzogs-chen

tradition

as

deeply suspect in lacking

an

Indic pedigree.

The belief in the absolute indivisible unity

of

wisdom

and

means from

the point

of

view of ultimate truth, then, is what

underpins the

belief of

the sJs fub-brgyud traditions that when yogins have developed through

intensive meditation enough realisation to actually practise from the frui

tional point of view, then they are best advised to simply dwell continu

ously within sems-nyid (the absolute bodhicitta) during rjes-thob; this is


11/28

THE TI ET JOURNAL

understood

to

be

the

true nature of

mind,

which

is emptiness. From this

single practice of

dwelling within

absolute bodhicitta, it is believed all

other

qualities of

the

relative

bodhicitta

will arise spontaneously. They

often

add that

the best way to meditate

on

sems-nyid

or

the

absolute

bodhicitta

is

through merging one's mind

with

the guru, because

the

enlightened

mind of

the

guru is absolute

bodhicitta,

a belief apparently

espoused

also

by Tsongkhapa

(Williams 1989: 203 .

That

a scholarly figure

like

Sa-pan objected

to these meditator's

views

is

entirely

predictable:

what we have here is one more instance of the perennial

Buddhist

con

versation between

yogins

and scholars, between what Geoffrey Samuel

has termed the clerical" and "shamanic" currents within Buddhism, bet

ween

those who

think in

terms of

an immanent

absolute

and those who

think

in terms of a

more

apophatic understanding of emptiness; in short,

a

conversation

which is usually friendly, but

which

can, under certain

historical circumstances, become quite abusive.

Now,

it

is clear that the above views attributed

by

dPal-sprul to Atisa

are identical to those views of

sGam-po-pa attacked

by Sa-pan. My ques

tion

is, in criticising

the

bKa'-brgyud-pas, to what extent

was

Sa-pan also

implicitly

attacking the

bKa' -gdams-pas,

or

their

teachings

on

bodhicitta?

Of

course, I cannot say if dPal-sprul's attribution of these views to Atisa

and 'Brom-ston is historically accurate, alth.ough

there

is some

independ

ent evidence that Atisa accepted an indivisible

continuity

of absolute and

relative bodhicitta, in this

perhaps

following some

of the

Yogacara tradi

tions.

However,

it

is fascinating to see that, as Jackson

reports

(p.1l8,

n.275 and p.87, n.215), Sa-pan

did undoubtedly

reject

the

bKa'-gdams-pa

tradition

as

inauthentic (along

with

the

rDzogs-chen,

the

gCod-yul

etc.),

because it

had

no

proper Indian

pedigree, being merely a tradition in

vented by the

"[Tibetan) old-timers"

rgan-po),

or elders of Tibet" bod

bgres-po).12 To

hold such inauthentic

non-Indic traditions as supreme, Sa

paJ) wrote, "is

the conduct of the

ignorant, as foolish as

being

a follower

of

the

non-Buddhist Indian sectarians" (p.1l8). Perhaps

this

is one area

where more research is still required: we need

to know

to what extent Sa

pan's attack on

sGam-po-pa

was in part founded on his disapproval of the

old

bKa'

-gdams-pa

tradition.1

3

We

also

need

to ascertain,

of

course,

whether Atisa's views,

or those of the

later bKa'-gdams-pa tradition,

were

indeed as dPal-sprul and

sGam-po-pa suggest,

especially since other

sources (such as

the

dGe-Iugs-pa)

might

attribute

quite

different (i.e., less

gzhan-stong-congruent

views to

him and to 'Brom-ston-pa

SG/\M-PO-PA AND MO-HO-YEN

Be that as

it

may, Sa-pan

apparently saw

sGam-po-pa's move into such

fruitional contemplative

methods

within chapter 17 of

the

Thar-rman as


12/28

REVIEW ARTICLES 89

a heresy based on the proscribed views of

the

Chinese master MO-ho-yen.

For Sa-pan, it seems

that

fruitional meditations like this had little or no

place at all in a stltrayana context: as I understand it, he seems to have felt

that once

one

admits a fruitional-vehicle method into a stltrayana context,

the basic distinction

between

stltrayana and

tantrayana

becomes

eroded

(p.88-90) (again, d Bentor 1992). From Sa-pan's perspective, then, it was

surely little wonder

that

sGam-po-pa

ended

up making

two

innovative

developments that Sa-pan most vehemently condemned, not only because

Sa-pan

disapproved

all doctrinal

innovations

whatsoever, but also because

these

two developments

so flagrantly transgressed what Sa-pan saw as

the

proper boundaries between

Stltra and Tantra: sCam-po-pa first started

talking

about

a Stltra

Mahamudra

as

opposed

to

the

Tantra

Mahamudra

inherited from the Indian siddhas,

and

then even of

an

Essence Maha

mudra beyond

any

yana

1

shall turn to Sa-pan's views on innovation

presently).

Jackson suggests some interesting justifications for Sa-pan's charge that

sGam-po-pa was reviving Mo-ho-yen's "heresy." Jackson uses

modern

philological research to argue that sCam-po-pa is

indeed

in Ch.17 of the

Thar rgyan quoting (inter alia, it has to be admitted, among many

other

Indic materials), from Mahayana stltra texts which, while already listed in

the state-approved IOan kar rna catalogue of the early translation period,

and which

were

also in due course to be accepted

by the

Tibetan Kanjur

makers,

(who

of course

only

finalised their work much later), nevertheless

had

entered

Tibet from Chinese sources. Not

only

that, but these texts

were indeed

used by the very Ch an

traditions (such as Mo-ho-yen's) once

active

in

Tibet (p.22-23). Since sCam-po-pa's

quotations

formed a

coherent

sequential list of

pre-prepared quotes taken

from a

group

of these sources,

Jackson

argues that

sGam-po-pa could

only have got

such a list of quota

tions from

what

Sa-pan saw as "heretical" textual sources, either from

"illicit" literature left

behind by

Chinese masters such as Mo-ho-yen

in the

8th century that had somehow survived being purged, or (as I believe

more likely), from what Sa-pan

saw

as equally "heretical" writings

such

as those of the early rNying ma-pa master gNubs Sangs-rgyas ye-shes

p.24).

Jackson's

argument

is philologically reasonable:

one

might question

if

sGam-po-pa put

the

list together himself by browsing through

the

Sutra pitaka

even

granted that proto-canonical collections were probably

available to him.

Later (p.140), Jackson

supports

Sa-pan once more when

he

concludes

that the mere existence of these

quotations

from Chinese-originated texts

within the Thar rgyan must create difficulties even for sGam-po-pa's

own

followers, i.e., that this

must render

sGam-po-pa unsound even

by

the

criteria of his

own

followers. This might

be true

for some of sGam·po-pa's


13/28


followers, but

it

certainly need not be for all of them: not only

were

these

texts included in the

Kanjur but, as several

authors including

David

Snellgrove

1987: 436) and

David Seyfort Ruegg

1989: 137)

have pointed

out, not all Tibetan traditions

have adopted

such a uniformly hostile

attitude to Chinese Buddhism or even to Mo-ho-yen as Jackson's reason

ing presupposes. On the contrary, writes Seyfort Ruegg, some "adopted

a noticeably more conciliatory stance toward the teachings they connected

with the Hva san." Could it not be that in

using

a

token

percentage of

Chinese-originated Buddhist sources in his Thar rgyan (albeit sources

widely accepted in Tibet especially

by

rDzogs-chen-pas), sGam-po-pa was

consciously seeking both to associate himself

with

rNying-ma-pa col

leagues,

and

to

distance himself from

what

he

saw as

vulgar

religious

bigotry? Certainly, several rNying-ma-pa masters have taken quite tolerant

positions towards Chinese Buddhism: while

proudly

identifying them

selves as

the

heirs of Santaraksita

and

Kamalaslla,l'

they

nevertheless

found

the courage to defy

the

belligerence of

popular

prejudice

by

re

presenting

the

Chinese Buddhist traditions as a partial virtue

rather

than

an absolute evil. Such a stand was for them a consciously adopted ideo

logical position. Perhaps sGam-po-pa thus saw

important

spiritual reasons

to align himself

with

his rDzogs-chen-pa spiritual friends, who probably

regarded the traditions of Mo-ho-yen as possessing some definite worth,

even

if much less than those of their own Indian masters, and who prob

ably deplored as the sin of slandering bodhisattvas the unthinking and

unmitigated

contempt widely

levelled

at

Chinese

Buddhism

as a whole

and Mo-ho-yen

in

particular.

MEDITATORS AND SCHOLARS

Some of the most useful sections of this excellent book are Chapters Four

and

Five, where Jackson sets out Sa-pan's precise criticisms of

the

bKa'- '

brgyud-pa, and what he calls Sa-pan's "principles of critical doctrinal

scholarship." Here we find a fascinating manifesto for Tibetan (or even

Buddhist) clericalism as a whole. As one might expect, the contrast

with

sGam-po-pa's practice lineage is stark. While Sa-pan the statesman and

logician applies the law of the excluded middle to construct an invariable

set of rules

about Buddhist

doctrine

which

he

aspires

to

see applied

globally, sGam-po-pa

the

hermit

and

spiritual physician is a pragmatist

who cares little for logical inconsistencies

or

academic categories, so long

as his remedies

work

for his

own

disciples locally.

Once

again,

we

have

a classic

confrontation

of

the

contrasting value systems of "respectability"

and reputation

d. Wilson 1973),

which

Geoffrey Samuel has so convin

cingly

linked

to what

he

terms

the

"clerical"

and

"shamanic" currents that


14/28

REVIEW

ARTICLES 9

pervade all of Buddhism (Samuel 993: 215-217). In this case, the con

frontation was rendered more acute by historical factors: Sa-pan and

sCam-po-pa are widely seen as culture-heroes around

whom

were formed

(to a

substantial

extent)

the

clerical

and

shamanic poles of

subsequent

Buddhism in Tibet. As prime exemplars for their currents, a degree of

polarisation in their self-representations was predictable,

and

(arguably)

even historically useful for Buddhism as a whole. Yet it is significant how

quickly the contradictory elements between the Sa-skya-pa and bKa'

brgyud-pa

paths

(as expressed by these founding figures), were subsumed

within the much greater complimentarities which they offered each other:

unsurprisingly, it was not very long before most lamas following these

traditions

transmitted

teachings from

both

sides. Jackson graphically

alludes to such

underlying

complimentarities with his postscript, in

which

he describes the

interconnected

legends of two Indian siddhas, the mat

tock-man Kotali and the

great

scholar Santipa.

A

COr\TEMPORII..RY CRISIS FOR CLERICAL

BUDDHISM

jackson's discussion of Sa-pan's underlying principles are admirably lucid.

However,

by setting out

Sa-pan's concerns so clearly, Jackson's

book

also

exposes, perhaps ominously, how the whole edifice of Buddhist clericalism

is

currently facing a crisis of credibility

that

does

not

currently threaten

the

sgrub brgyud

traditions

such

as sCam-po-pa's to the same extent. I feel

this crisis is

of more than

localised importance,

and

will comprehensively

affect the way in

which

figures such as Sa-pan and Tsong-kha-pa will

come to be seen in future years.

There are several aspects to this crisis,

but

here I shall focus solely on

the issue of canonicity.

In

general terms, Tibetan clericalism is so

highly

rationalised, so deeply committed to logic, that it cannot easily defy the

dictates of evidence and

sound

reasoning and still survive with its pres

tige and self-confidence intact. Not only that, but the Tibetan clerical

tradition, for so long cocooned in its pre-modern world-view, has never

sensed any

dangers

in founding itself

upon

a set of fundamental axioms

or metanarratives that quite frequently take the form of empirically

falsifiable propositions.

Now,

precisely

such

falsifiable propositions

have

been employed as the basis upon which to establish and maintain the

criteria of a universal and normative

Buddhist

canonical orthodoxy; this

was

an undertaking

which clerical

Buddhism

has consistently

seen

as

one

of its most important functions

and

responsibilities, and which

was

so

overwhelmingly important to Sa-pan.

The problem is, however, that many of these key logical underpinnings

for

the

clerical interpretation of canonical orthodoxy

now

appear to

have

been irrevocably falsified

by

modern

learning. To make matters worse,

the


15/28

92

THE TIBET JOURNAL

centralising aspirations of Buddhist clericalism, its very wish to impose

universally its views of canonical orthodoxy, are nowadays all too easily

interpretable

as a morally dubious religious hegemonism

or

intolerance.

This negative interpretation is particularly exacerbated

when

the hege

monistic aspirations of clerical Buddhism are seen to

be based on

mani

festly untrue axioms, i.e., upon criteria of canonical orthodoxy that now

appear to have been merely ideological rather than based

on

empirical

fact,

d. Foucault and

his analysis of "discourses of power").

Conversely, the practice lineages have usually taken lightly or even

explicitly repudiated these clerical concerns

with

canonical purity, instead

taking a view (perhaps fortuitously?) much closer to that of modern text

ual historians. Above all,

in basing

themselves mainly

on

more pragmatic,

flexible (and unfalsifiable ) principles of spiritual efficacy, they are cur

rently

gaining

in relative prestige. Not

only

is their intense, direct version

of spirituality feeding a modern spiritual

hunger,

but

they can also in

creasingly claim the

contemporary

moral high-ground,

appearing

as Bud

dhism's

unjustly maligned, non-political mystics

in

contrast to the hector

ing, political clerics.

To illustrate, let us

look at three

specific key points

in

Sa-pan's writings:

1 firstly, there is the strongly held notion that the complete

buddh v c n in

its

entirety

had already been

expounded in

India

by

the

historical

Buddha in

person,

who

had

taught

his

doctrine both well and completely; and that moreover, the

various ramifications of this

buddh v c n

had already been

comprehensively

expounded by

the great masters of India

through

the

different Indic commentarial traditions (p.99ff);

2

consequently,

Sa-pan rejected all fresh canonical revelation

and

doctrinal

innovation;

rather, he believed it

was of

overwhelming

importance

that

each valid tradition inherited from India should

remain

intact, carefully preserved as in aspic

without

any

innovations

or changes being made to it in Tibet;

3 thirdly, he held that the legitimacy of any disputed doctrine

must be established in debate by sound reasoning grounded in

objective fact" (p.92ff).

Now,

it was precisely by

applying

these three principles

that

Sa-pan

rejected sGam-po-pa's two main innovations,

the

Sutra Mahamudra and

the

Mahamudra

beyond any yana.,,15 Sa-pan argued against sGam-po-pa

that:

1 it was

an

incontrovertible, objective fact

that

the historical

Buddha

himself

had taught

the

MahamuClra

tradition inherited


16/28

REVIEW ARTICLES 93

by sGam-po-pa solely and exclusively within the canonical

tantras, in

this case,

those

of

the

Cakrasamvara cycle; (i.e.,

Mahamudra had never

been

taught

in

the sutras ;

2

ergo

it

can be inferred by valid

reasoning that

sGam-po-pa

contradicted

his

own

authentic

received canonical tradition of

the Buddha's teachings, when he introduced the innovation of

divorcing Mahamudra from the tantric context and introducing

a Sfltra

Mahamudra.

But modern scholarship turns Sa-pan's world inside

out and

upside

down in ways he could never have expected. Far from being taught y

the historical Buddha as Sa-pan believed, we now perceive the "incontro

vertible, objective fact"

to be that the

Cakrasamvara tantras in question

were produced 12 centuries or more after the

Buddha's

passing; not only

that,

but

we also believe that they comprised predominantly Saiva materi

als, adapted

to

its own use by Buddhism.

16

Moreover, we also know that

virtually none of the multitude of other scriptures so revered as authenti-

cally canonical"

by

Sa-pan could ever have been

uttered

y the historical

Buddha at all, as

he thought:

on

the

contrary,

they were

all later "innova

tions."

Nor were they

necessarily even Indic: recent research (Jan Nattier,

JIABS

15: 2, 1992) suggests

that

even the

Heart

Sutra, arguably

the

most

heavily-commentated

upon

of all

Mahayana

scriptures

in

India,

was

prob

ably redacted

in

China.

Thus

it is quite clear

that

virtually

the entirety of

Sa-pan's zealously established canon of valid scripture

in

truth fell well

outside of Sa-pan's own criteria of "canonical authenticity,"

and

for

exactly the same reasons as the gter-ma and Chinese-originated texts he so

deplored So if we take Sa-pan seriously, (rather than patronising him as

a quaint medieval for whom we have to make allowances), and examine

his own canon according to his own criteria, n the light of modern know-

ledge it is

now

the

entire edifice of his own construction of canonical

scriptural orthodoxy which is utterly

and

totally shattered.

Yet ironically the same is not true of

the

sgrub-brgyud traditions he cri

ticised: here, modern scholarship vindicates their position after alL A great

many or

even

most voices

within the

rNying-ma-pa tradit ion have consist

ently

maintained

(often

in the

face

of

fierce criticism from the likes of Sa

pan

that the Mahayana

and Vajrayana scriptures arose out of ongoing

revelation and

innovation

after

the death

of the historical Buddha (Dud

jom 1991: 441, 456; Gyatso 1994; Mayer 1996:

51-55 .

These rNying-ma-pa

voices have

maintained that

systematic methods of ongoing revelation

and

innovation

were

taught as an inalienable aspect

of the Mahayana

dis

pensation

in

the earliest

Mahayana

sutras such as

the

Pratyutpannabuddha

samukhtivasthita-sutra,

that

these systems were historically practised in


17/28

94 THE

TIBET

JOURNAL

India, Central Asia and China, and that the rNying-ma-pa uphold these

traditions within Tibet into the

present

day

gter-ma

and

dag-snang). In

general, the rNying-ma-pa found

support

and protection

among

the bKa'

brgyud-pas.

Now,

modern philology powerfully

supports

their claims

as

well.

17

Far from

being the

unreasonable

and

inauthentic

Buddhist

fringe

that Sa-pan portrays, to the

modern

sensibility

they

might increasingly

appear as Buddhism s still, small voice of truth

about

the real origins of

its own canonical scriptures, that somehow

withstood

centuries of propa

ganda

and

even

occasional persecution from the more powerful

and

polit

ical clerics such as Sa_pan.

18

So the question

must

be addressed: if

so

many

rNying-ma-pa authors (including Sa-pan's contemporaries) correctly

understood

the

later, revealed

nature

of

the

Mahayana

and

Vajrayana

scriptures, by what special

pleading

must

we

make allowances for Sa-

pan s error in attributing

these texts to

the mouth

of the historical

Buddha, and moreover

using

this false claim as the main basis of his

attack

upon the

hapless but more correct rNying-ma-pa?

As well as putting an entirely different perspective on the principle of

ongoing

scriptural revelation that Sa-pan rejected in the name of cano

nical orthodoxy, modern

knowledge

can also put a different colouration

on

sGam-po-pa's specific doctrinal innovations

that

Sa-pan

had

singled

out for criticism. We cannot, of course, be certain if sGam-po-pa was

aware of the intertextuality of the scriptures he inherited from India with

particular Saiva traditions}9 but his introduction of Slltra and Essence

Mahamudra

systems can nevertheless be seen as historically appropriate,

in

that it completed the Mahayanisation and Buddhicisation of the Saiva

materials which in some respects remained as yet

somewhat

ill-digested

in the

Indic Cakrasamvara source texts. The Essence

Mahamudra

in par

ticular comprises a simple synopsis of basic

Buddhist

teachings, drawing

together the

central doctrines of Hinayana, Yogacara

and

Madhyamaka in

a simple

and

uncontroversial way;20 by establishing this Essence Maha

mudra fair

and

square

at

the

heart or

apex of

the

otherwise uncomfortably

Saiva-derived set of tantric methods taught in the Cakrasamvara cycle

(such as gtum-mo), sGam-po-pa and his followers can be seen as having

reinforced

and

completed the final historical

Mahayana

Buddhist over

coding of this otherwise potentially ambivalent Indic Tantric tradition cf.

taming, dul-ba). Especially for a sgrub-brgyud lineage that did not envis

age years of

training

in Mahayana tenets before approaching tantric prac

tice, such further Buddhicisation can be seen as a praiseworthy historical

achievement by sGam-po-pa's tradition.

Do

the above observations mean that the central clerical Buddhist con

cern so

ardently pursued

over so many centuries

by

so

many

great figures

such

as Sa-pan

and

Tsong-kha-pa, namely the

quest

to establish correct


18/28

REVIEW

ARTICLES

95

parameters for a

Buddhist

canonical

and

doctrinal orthodoxy,

must

now

be discarded as

an outmoded

absurdity because it is based on fallacious

historical understandings? I

hope and

believe not: hope, because I strong

ly suspect

that without

a healthy clerical current to act as a stabilising

force, the Buddhist

dispensation

will tend

towards

a quite unbeneficial

disintegration;21 believe, because I fully expect

that the

clerical Buddhism

(of Tibet at least) will increasingly manage to reassert itself

in

new and

historically more

appropriate

ways.

Perhaps

what clerical

Buddhism

must

do to adequately

meet contemporary

conditions, however, is to dig deep

and rediscover its underlying first principles, to enter into a self-reflexive

re-appraisal

of what

its

fundamental

concerns actually are, to begin a fresh

analysis

that

looks (as

did

Sa-pan) more historically, more globally, more

wholistically, than has been customary at less critical times. Perhaps con

troversially, my

own

view (and here I seem to differ diametrically from

the major academic apologists for

Buddhist

clericalism such as David

Seyfort Ruegg and David Jackson), is that such a regeneration of clerical

Buddhism can

only

be achieved if clerical Buddhism is to come out

and

frankly

admit

that its role is (in part at least)

inherently

a politic l one,

albeit in

the

most

virtuous

sense of

that

much-misunderstood

and

complex

term. To illustrate: clerical Buddhism does

and should

aspire (inter alia)

to put

intelligent

and

reasoned

restraints on doctrinal and canonical

innovations,

but there

is no point in trying to deny that the exercise of

restraint on such a broad scale is necessarily a political enterprise,

that

is,

within the full sociological meaning of

the

term political, rather than

in

its naive

popular

usage.

To my mind, the genius of Tibetan Buddhism s

great

clerical figures has

usually

been distinguished

by

precisely

such an

appreciation of a political

aspect to their task: to be a major clerical figure implies a role in Buddhist

social leadership, which in turn implies an acceptance of the responsibility

to engage virtuously in religious politics. Historically, such responsible

Buddhist leadership has above all been concerned

with

maintaining a cor

rect balance between

what

Geoffrey Samuel has called

the

clerical

and

shamanic currents within the

Buddhist

dispensation, making sure that

the

pendulum

of Buddhist

culture avoids

swinging

too far

in one

direc

tion or the other.

Thus

Sa-pan, faced simultaneously

with the

catastrophic

destruction of the

Buddhist

tradition in India

on

the one

hand and

the

proliferation of shamanic doctrinal innovation in Tibet

on the other

hand, valiantly struggled to preserve what little was left of the Indic

clerical heritage in his time, to the immense benefit of

subsequent

generations. Likewise, Tsong-kha-pa achieved a refocusing on central

BUddhist values and ethics

much

needed in his time,

while

more recently

mKhyen-brtse

dbang-po and

'Jam-mgon Kong-sprul (the

great

clerical


19/28

96

THE TIBET JOURNAL

figures of Ris-med) achieved the successful regeneration of the shamanic

current

and a dissolving of clerical ossification

and

sectarianism that was

so

urgently

required in their time. Most recently, we have the contempo_

rary figure of the 14th Dalai Lama,

whose

(to my mind entirely virtuous)

religious-political

purpose

has been two-fold: internally,

within

Tibetan

Buddhism, he has achieved a reconciliation

between

the dGe-Iugs-pa and

Ris-med-pa

traditions

(which has

required

a politically

fraught

repudiation

of rDo-rje Shugs-Idan), while externally,

on the world

stage,

he

has

sought to establish the universally comprehensible

and

attractive doctrines

of compassion and the Bodhisattva conduct

as

the contemporary para

meters of Buddhist orthodoxy, in place of any remote

and

abstruse formu

lations of

the

doctrine of emptiness.

Thus many of the seminal clerical figures of the past have expounded

different or

even

conflicting doctrines and tenets and have pursued differ

ing agendas, but all alike have been motivated with the same, central,

unavoidably political concern of the clerical Buddhist leader: to steer the

Buddhist culture of their time away from potentially dangerous

or

ex-

treme trajectories, and to help it retain a stable balance. In

that

respect,

their views are to some degree historically contingent,

uttered

for a

cer-

tain time to achieve certain results

in

the

context of specific conditions,

and

might

therefore eventually become anachronistic, for example, as I

believe, some of Sa-pan's ideas on canonicity have become. On the other

hand,

their

deeper,

underlying

inspiration remains the same: to employ

skilful means

upaya)

to sustain

the

well-being of

the Buddhist sasana

through the vicissitudes of history.

As

with all skilful means, however,

one

must

know when the time has come to relinquish them

and

take up

a different upaya.

Notes

1. Neither sGam-po-pa's Chapter

17, nor

the various surviving versions of the

Seven Point Mind

Training

available to me, give any additional instruction

for the rjes-thob other than these. Unfortunately, Jackson does not

quote

the

Tibetan text of sGam-po-pa's opening

keynote

phrase that sums up and

introduces

this sub-section on rjes-thob, nor do I currently have the Tibetan

text available;

hence

I

can

only

quote Guenther s

translation

above

(Guenther

1971: 218).

The equivalent phrase from the only Tibetan version of the Seven Points

of

Mind

Training available to

me

is:

thun mtshams s yu ma i

skyes

bur bya I, In

between

sessions, consider yourself a child of illusion. dGe- dun

grub

(Dalai

Lama

I 1391-1474), glosses this as follows: In those times when you have

arisen from

your

meditation cushion,

and consciousness and its objects seem

to truly exist, meditate on the thought, They seem to exist, yet they are like

an

illusion

and

like

things

seen in

a dream'. (trans.

Mullin

1993: 134).

Geshe


20/28

REVIEW ARTICLES

97

Rabten

and

Ceshe Ngawang Dhargyey

give

the

same advice,

adding that

to

meditate on all

phenomena

as

empty

during the

rje-thob phase

protects

the

mind against

emotional afflictions (Rabten

& Dhargyey 1977: 45-46).

It seems,

then, that these

dCe-Iugs-pa sources agree

with

sCam-po-pa

that

meditation

on

emptiness

is sufficient for

rje-thob,

while

they do

not

say, as does sCam-po

pa,

that generosity

etc.

are

thereby spontaneously accomplished.

2.

For example,

Ratnagunasamcayagiitha 3.7-8; 4.5-7; 25.4-5; Astasahasrika. 3.4; 25.

3;

Conze s The Large

Sutra

on

Perfect Wisdom, Chapter 59,

page

470,

here

quoting the

Cilgit ms.

of the

Astadasasahasrika-prajr1aparamita

(=Abhisamaya

laqlkara V 5 .

3.

There is,

however,

a certain historical irony here: it

is

widely believed

that

the

long-lasting marriage of

Zen with

the

samurai

military arts

might never have

happened,

but

for

the

extreme national

trauma

occasioned

by

the Mongol

attempts

to

invade Japan

(Hoover 1978: 60). Yet at the very time of

the

Mongol

attempts

on

Japan (between

1268

and

1281), it seems to have

been

none other than

Sa-pan's direct successor

and nephew

Phags-pa

(1235-1280)

who held the

role of Qubilai's

main

tantric

siddha

or

priest;

and,

as Sperling

has shown,

a central

part

of this position lay in the propitiation of Mahakala

to assist

the purposes

of

the

state

or

monarch,

be they

military

or

otherwise

This role had

been taken

over

by

the Sa-pan and

Phags-pa

from the

bKa'

-brgyud-pas,

in

this specific instance

quite

possibly from

the

Tshal-pa

subsect

(see

next

note;

d.

Sperling

1990: 147-148). The changeover was

prob

ably

not

entirely without acrimony, since

there

exists literary evidence indica

ting

that

some bKa -brgyud-pas saw

it as

an unwelcome

usurpation

of

an

important position

that

was to some degree the possession of the bKa'

brgyud-pas by right

(Sperling 1994: 806). The position of imperial priest

had

originally

been

held

by

a succession of bKa'

-brgyud-pa

siddhas, at first on

behalf of

the Buddhist Tangut

empire,

and then

on behalf of its more warlike

Mongol

successor state

under

Kaden

(Sperling

1994),

from

where

Qubilai

later

adopted the

institution into Chinese

court

circles too.

Be

that

as it may, we

know beyond

doubt that

one

of

Phags-pa s

official

dulies was

to propitiate Mahakala

in

support

of Mongol military

and

political

objectives (Sperling

1994: 805). t

is

therefore

highly

possible

that Phags-pa

was requested by

Qubilai to

do

Mahakala

sadhanas

to assist his invasion of

Japan,

although Phags-pa had presumably

already

died

before

the

catas

trophic

destruction

of

the

Mongol fleet

by the legendary kamikaze typhoon

in the

early

summer

of

1281.

Nevertheless it

was

this invasion

which

possibly

contributed to precisely

the kind

of distortion

within

Japanese

Buddhism that

Sa-pan

had

apparently sought to prevent in Tibet.

4. Seyfort Ruegg,

however, mentions

sources

that

suggest the 'Bri-gung-pa's

dGongs-gcig

teachings as well as

Guru

Zhang s

tradition as

being the

target

of

Sa-pan s

critique

(Ruegg 1989: 109),

while

Dan

Martin sees

the sDom-gsum

as more

concerned

to refute bKa'-gdams-pa doctrines

than bKa -brgyud-pa

(personal

communication,

30/9/96. There

is

a little external evidence suggest

ing

that

the Bri-gung connection might

be more significant

than

Jackson in

dicates. While the notorious revolt gling-log) of Bri-gung against Sa-skya-pa


21/28


rule leading

to

the

sack of

'Bri-gung

in 1290

came four decades after Sa-pan's

time, nevertheless, according to a recent

communication

from Elliot Sperling,

there is one

historical tradition indicative of earlier tensions

or

conflicts

between

Sa-pan

in

person and some individual 'Bri-gung-pas. Sperling has

told

me

that

there

survives

a

somewhat convoluted

narrative of 'Bri-gung-pa

yogins

en route

for Kailash,

who angered

Sa-pan

by

being, as

he

thought,

arrogant towards him. The narrative

is

problematic

in that

it involves definite

historical

anachronisms, but

it does

seem

to

speak

of tensions

between

'Bri

gung and

Sa-skya

at the

time

of

Sa-pan. The narrative

is

reported in the

Tibetan version

of Shakabpa's

political history (pp.304-305),

but

does not

appear

in

the

English version

although

a translation

appears

in

Dan

Martin

1992: 185.

It is also

very

noteworthy in

this context

that

a division of Mongol

patronage

between various bKa'-brgyud-pa

groups and the Sa-skya-pas was

already well in place by the 1250's, i.e.,

quite

shortly after Sa-pan's

death

in

1251

(personal communication, Elliot Sperling, 8/8/96). There was an in

herently

political

dimension

to these alignments:

they functioned

as the

Mongol method

of

administering

Tibet

in such

a

way that

allowed each

Mongol

prince to

enjoy

a

share

of

the

spoils. Sperling explains: These were

not

nominal alignments . Each [Mongol] prince

is

said to have become the

overlord of certain territories

in

Tibet as a result of a

common

agreement

between

all

of

them. By extension these lands fell

under the

sway

of the

subsects

they

patronized (Sperling 1990: 147 .

Thus

a highly reliable source,

Ta'i Situ

Byang-chub rgyal-mtshan

(1302-1364), relates in his

bKa -chems

that

in

the period

following

the enthronement

of

Mangke

in

1251,

Kaden

took his

priest from

the

Sa-skya-pa,

Mangke

took his priest from

the

'Bri-gung-pa,

Hulegu took his priest from

the Phag-mo gru-pa,

Arig Bake took his priest

from

the

Stag-Iung-pa and, most significantly, Qubilai, who

was

to emerge

supreme

from

the

dynastic competitions

and

rule his

great

empire from

China

from 1260-1294, took his priest from the Tshal-pa, i.e., the lineage of

Guru Zhang (Sperling

1990: 148 .

Ta'i Situ

adds that

each Mongol prince

sent

a

lieutenant

yul-bsrungs) to live at

the monastery

of

the

subsect

through

whom

they administered their share

of Tibet.

The

Fifth Dalai Lama's history

of Tibet

apparently drew

upon Ta'i Situ's,

and thus

gives the same set of

alignments between

princes and subsects (Sperling

1990: 147 .

But

these

arrangements were short-lived: after the Mongol dynastic

succession

was

resolved

in favour

of Qubilai (who, according to Tibetan

sources, was backed by Kaden), the

consequence

was

that

all the other

Mongol princes (save Qubilai's

other

more distant ally Hulegu, 1215-1265)

had

to

withdraw

their

lieutenants

or

representatives from Tibet,

with

Qubilai

taking

effective control of the

whole country through

his client Tibetan

subsect.

Thus

it followed

that whichever

Tibetan subsect was serving

as

Qubilai's priests,

was thereby

due to take

over

rulership of virtually all of

Tibet (save those areas

which

Hulegu administered

through

his clients, the

Phag-mo gru-pa and 'Bri-gung-pa of later gling-Iog fame). So,

if

we are to

believe Ta'i Situ Byang-chub rgyal-mtshan and the Fifth Dalai Lama, the


22/28

REVIEW ARTICLES 99

Tshal-pa tradition

founded by

Guru Zhang might at

one

stage have

had

a

very real

chance

of

inheriting the

coveted

r61e

of

supreme

patronage by

virtue

of

their

association

with

Qubilai

However,

this

was

not

to be. Kaden,

who had

a key r61e in placing Qubilai on

the throne,

seems also to

have sent

Phags-pa

to live

at

Qubilai's

court even

before Qubilai's reign actually

began

(Sperling

1994: 805);

could the Tshal-pa

have been

displaced as Qubilai's main

priests at this

juncture?

Or

were they

displaced

even

earlier? I

am

unclear of

the chronology. Nevertheless, it follows

that

if Jackson is correct

that

Guru

Zhang s

tradition

was the

specific target of Sa-pan's polemic, an interesting

political

dimension

emerges:

the

Sa-skya-pas of

that

period,

with the

help

of

Kaden (Sperling

1994: 80S),

seem to

have

succeeded in ensuring that Phags

pa was

able to take

over the

incomparably politically desirable job as

Qubi

lai's chief priest,

with

all

the

privilege

and patronage

it implied, precisely from

the followers of

Guru Zhang, the

principal target of Sa-pan's polemic,

written

so shortly before

Perhaps

it is also

worth

mentioning

that

it seems to me (at first glance at

least)

that

if

one

looks at Sa-pan's polemic from a strictly Chinese

point

of

view,

one

sees

that

the

gist of his critique coincides

very

closely

with

the

stringent

bibliographic criteria of

Buddhist heresy

(i.e., non-Indic origins)

that

had become increasingly well established and normative

within the

succes

sive

Chinese

states from

the

time of

Emperor

Liang Wu-ti

(502-549)

(Strick

mann 1990,

Buswell

1990:

1;

Mayer 1996: 12-14). Of

course, I

am not

at all

suggesting

that

Sa-pan

inherited these

criteria from China: rather,

that

the

criteria coincided for doctrinally similar reasons

inherent

to a certain strand

of

Mahayana

Buddhist thinking. Nevertheless such reasons might

have

looked

even more persuasive

from a

Chinese

perspective

than they did

in

Tibet, and this

might

have reinforced Sa-skya-pa prestige at Qubilai's court.

In

other

words,

Sa-pan's critique

of the bKa -brgyud-pa and rNying-ma-pa

alike as non-Indic

was one eminently

comprehensible to

the

official

Chinese

Buddhist

establishment. This

might have made

difficulties for figures

such

as

Karma Pakshi,

depending

as

they

did in almost

equal measure

on the tradi

tions of

both

sGam-po-pa and of

the

rNying-ma-pa.

Thus, while I

have

no doubt at all

that

Sa-pan's motives in

writing

his

polemics

were

religiously sincere, I nevertheless feel

that

the

important

and

complex political dimensions to his struggles

with

the Tshal-pa (and

other

subsects)

do need

investigation

and

clarification.

5

Once again, I regret

not having

the' Tibetan text available,

and

so I

must

rely

on

Guenther s

translation.

6

These

statements attributed

to Atisa are here

introduced

by

dPal-sprul to

enlarge upon briefer previous

quotations

of similar

sentiment attributed

to

a g a ~ u n a

and Saraha (Patrul

1994: 255).


23/28


7.

For example, Williams quotes Santideva

on

bodhicilla thus: How can I

fathom the depths

of the goodness of this jewel of the mind,

the

panacea that

relieves the world of pain?

8.

I regret

that

I

do not have any

primary materials for this

sutra

available to

me

at

the moment;

see

Sherburne

1983: 46-49. Despite this

usage

of quotations

from the

s .ltra,

it nevertheless seems

that

the

main

gist of this famous scrip_

ture is

in

reality very much more

in

accord with the conventional Perfection

of Wisdom doctrines,

in which

compassion and

wisdom

are cultivated sep

arately.

9. However, I am

not

aware of these latter types of sources (which might be

intended

as more literary than literal) further transferring the panacea im

agery onto

meditation on

emptiness because they categorise emptiness as

identical to

the

absolute bodhicitta. For Sa-pan,

on the

other hand, it was

quite

axiomatic

that

in the final analysis there could

be

no sole universal

panacea

at all, not even bodhicitta, and let alone emptiness (Jackson p.72).

10.

See, for example, the Byang-chub-kyi

sems

bsgom-pa, often called the rDo-la gser

zhun, attributed to Manjusrlmitra and found

in

the Tenjur, studied in Norbu

Lipman 1987.

11

The

Byang-c/wb lam-gyi sgron-ma i dka - grel, Ch.2, (which is traditionally held

to be Atisa's own autocommentary

on

the Bodhipathapradfpa, although I have

no idea if it

is

really by Atisa), generally recognises

the

plurality of the Bud

dhist traditions on such matters (d.

Sherburne

1983: 44),

and

tends to prefer

a remarkably undogmatic and non-committal stance. However, it does ap

parently make the following point: The

Thought

of Enlightenment

itself,

both at the time of its cause and at the time of its result, is altogether

one

and

the same reality (as translated in

Sherburne

1983: 61; I regret I have no

primary sources available). The text continues with a description of differing

analyses of bodhicitta according to

the

triad of Ground, Path and Fruit, all in

the form of exegeses upon the Abhisamaylilamklira s famous 22 similes

of

bodhicitta (earth, gold,

moon,

fire, treasury, etc.,

which

list, of course,

is

the

one that

famously likens

the

sixth

pliramitti.,

i.e. Perfect Wisdom, to a remedy).

According to

Sherburne

(p.63, n.34), the

Mahliylinasiltrlilamklira,

its

Bhlisya

by

Asari.ga, and a

short

work

by

]fi.anaklrti are the exegetical texts

being

alluded

to here.

12. In this context, these terms seem to be derogatory. Dan Martin observes that

other authors of the period such as Chag Lo-tsa-ba

and

Shes-rab 'byung-gnas

use these terms in the

same

way. Personal communication, 30/9/96.

13.

Yael Bentor (1992)

has

made

an

excellent start,

examining

Sa-paD's critique

of

bKa'

-gdams-pa

consecration rites. In this context, it

might be worth

bearing

in

mind

that

while the rNying-ma-pa, bKa'-brgyud-pa

and

dGe-Iugs-pa

schools alike all rely on the bKa' -gdams-pa mind-training (blo-sbyong) tradi

tions deriving from AtisLl, the Sa-skya-pas alone rely

upon

their own: the

Zhen-pa-bzhi bral, revealed

by

the Bodhisattva Mat1.jusri

to

the 12 year-old Sa

chen Kun-dga' snying-po in

the

first decade of

the

12th century.

14.

Conventionally, the I'Nying-ma-pa refer to themselves as

the

tradition of

mkhan-slob-chos-gsum:

the

mkhan-po

(abbot) Santarai

Date post:	01-Jun-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	guhyaprajnamitra3
View:	219 times
Download:	0 times

The Sa Skya Pandita, The White Panacea, And Clerical Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis

Documents