The following is a transcript of a talk, The Legacy of the Jonangpa by Michael R. Sheehy at the Great Stupa of Jonang in Tibet on July 17, 2009.

Great Stupa at Jonang, '09

So, the actual name of this place is Jomonang, which is the name of the valley.^[1] It is named "Jomonang" because the female local protector deity here is known as Jomo Ngag Gyalmo, who is said to live in the upper ridge right above you, but she oversees this whole valley. In the 13th century, a few hundred years after Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal inhabited this place, she discovered that there was this man called Kunpangpa (Kunpang Thukjé Tsöndru) who was living in a cave about three valleys away from here, who was a Kalachakra master and whose meditative realization had reached a point of perfection. She went to visit Kunpangpa. I have been to this cave where they met. It is up on a ridge that is a straight vertical drop down into a rushing river, a thousand feet or so – very, very high – its a precipice. Kunpangpa was living up there and she came to visit and said to him, “Oh, great Kalachakra master, I invite you to come and live in my valley and your so doing will allow the Kalachakra teachings to flourish in the Land of Snows.” He then replied to her (something like), “Oh, thank you for the invitation, but I am very busy, as you can tell, and I have at least three more years I have to stay in this cave – some more realizations to accomplish, some more siddhis. But, after three years, if my meditation goes well, then I’ll come visit you in Jomonang.”

Kalachakra Mandala

One of my favorite themes in tantric Buddhism is the mandala. The replicated symmetry of a perfected space and the implicit dialogue between the deity and the various facets of its environment have always fascinated me.

Recently, I had a chance to look closely at one specific mandala of the Kālachakra, one that is unlike the typical depiction.^[1] This particular mandala was commissioned by Lhachok Sengé (1468-1535) from Ngor Evam Choden Monastery, and is one of the famous Ngor Mandalas associated with the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.^[2] I understand that Ngor Monastery was pretty much demolished during the Cultural Revolution and that the stupa that was known for its mandalas is no longer a place of rich artistic value. However, as we see through this mandala and other examples, the artistic tradition of Ngor was not in a vacuum but in fact was in exchange with many of its neighbors in Central Tibet, including the Jonangpas just a few valleys away.

The following post is titled, A Brief Sketch of the Life of Buddhagupta-nātha. By Thomas Roth, a contributing author to the Jonangpa blog.

Buddhagupta

Jonang Jetsun Rinpoche, better known as Jonang Tāranātha (1575-1635), is well known for the many histories that he authored. Especially his famous History of Buddhism in India, The Seven Instruction Lineages and the Origin of the Tārā-Tantras, as well as his Kālacakra and Vajrabhairava histories, give us a fairly good idea of the development of many siddha lineages in India and their continuation onto Tibetan soil. The source for many of these accounts was an Indian master whom Tāranātha met around the year 1594 near Narthang in Central Tibet, while he himself stayed in a hermitage called “Mahābodhi.” That master was none other than the Mahāsiddha Buddhagupta-nātha, who was a disciple of the very famous Mahāsiddha Shanti-Gupta. Shanti-Gupta’s biography is added as an appendix to Tāranātha’s Seven Instruction Lineages, whereas his biography of Buddhagupta-nātha appears as a separate text.^[1]

Jamgon Kongtrul

One of the most fascinating figures in Tibetan history, Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé (1813-1899) is also one of the most studied Tibetan masters. In addition to several articles on his life and works, numerous volumes of his writings and compendiums have now been translated into English and other European languages, including his autobiography, A Gem of Many Colors.^[1] Though his works are well known and he is often considered a reviver of Tibetan traditions including the Jonang, his connections with Jonangpa masters have not been made explicit. In order to reveal some of these connections, I recently started to sift through his record of received transmissions (gsan yig), and I thought to jot a few notes here.^[2]

This post is titled, Dolpopa's Elusive Annotations to the Kālachakra Commentary. By Cyrus Stearns, a contributing author to the Jonangpa blog.

Dolpopa's fabled annotations to the Stainless Light commentary on the Kālachakra-tantra remain elusive. An incomplete annotated manuscript of the Stainless Light (missing chapter 5) was reproduced in the Paltseg Kālachakra Commentary Series. This text was mistakenly identified as Dolpopa's annotations, although in the booklet accompanying the collection the publisher does acknowledge the uncertainty of the identification. The manuscript is actually another, somewhat variant, copy of Chogle Namgyal's annotations (also published in vols. 4–5 of the same collection), not those of his teacher Dölpopa. A third computerized edition of Choglé Namgyal’s annotations has also been published as part of the Jonang Publications Series II, using several different manuscripts, one of which concludes with a set of anonymous verses that can be identified as the work of Dolpopa.^[1]

The second set in the Jonang Publication Series (Jo nang dpe tshogs) was recently published (vols. 11-21) in Beijing.^[1] This annual series is dedicated to making select works on sūtra and tantra from the Jonang exegetical tradition available in softcover book form. Each Tibetan text in the series was chosen from the corpus of Jonang Tibetan Buddhist literature, and several of the rare works included in the series have only recently been recovered through our efforts at Jonang Foundation.

Texts were digitally inputted and edited by Tibetan Jonang scholars and monks in China as part of this ongoing publication project. Selections of texts for each set are made by the directors of the Jonang Standing Council, and are being made available via the Jonang Foundation website. Encouraged by Gene Smith, I have sketched a few arbitrary notes on the texts included as redaction prints and the manuscript sources consulted for Series II:

Kunga Drolchok

As I've recently been reading through the collection of 108 Quintessential Instructions that was arranged by the Jonang master Kunga Drolchok (1507-1566), I've been thinking through the seemingly simple question, "What is the purpose of scholarship?"^[1]

Though people tend to think of the conventional notion of scholarship as being based on a model of a relatively narrow-minded insistence on reiterating a specific doctrine or set of principles for the sake of furthering erudition, there are alternative models. In the case of Drolchok, as well as numerous other representatives in the Tibetan scholastic tradition, the role of scholarship was primarily that of preservation. More specifically, scholarship was seen as a mode of operating in a way that would further conserve those ideas and practices that in one way or another were considered to be efficacious in promoting the spiritual optimization of individuals. It is on this model that the 108 Quintessential Instructions were compiled.

This post is titled, The Transmission of the Tantra and Practices of Tārāyogīni (Sgrol ma rnal 'byor ma): A Little-Known Jonang Specialty. By Thomas Roth, a contributing author to the Jonangpa blog.

Tarayogini

The Jonang tradition was and is well-known for holding and continuing to propagate several unique transmissions, such as various strands of Kālachakra transmissions and various traditions of its six-limbed vajrayoga; the Mahāsṃavāra Kālachakra, the view of emptiness based upon the insights and explications of Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292-1361) known as zhentong (gzhan stong) and others. Among these unique transmissions is one that is almost completely unknown outside of the Jonang tradition, and apparently not very widely practiced within it either, despite the fact that it seemingly was of rather great importance to the great Tāranātha (1575-1635) and that the great 19th century Rimé master Jamgon Kongtrul (1813-1899) regarded it highly, and he wrote about it and practiced it himself.

The "now" is important for any tradition. For it is in the process of bringing the past into the present wherein a tradition is brought to life. However, the past, and in particular the excavation of knowledge from the past, is arguably just as important for the life of a tradition.

As we discussed in the "Wheel of Time" series, this excavation process is a true concern for Dolpopa and later Jonangpa thinkers.^[1] For them, this is the hermeneutical act of retrieving the pure teaching from the pure time: the dharma of the Kṛtayuga or Perfect Eon.

However, there is more to this. There is then the act of transferring meaning ― lived meaning ― into the present. This is a careful process. A surgical deliberation that involves the transference of language, culture, and history ― or what I like to call, "ancestry."

Marveling at how the ultimate is described as expressions, and thinking about how to relate this ongoing theme to Kālachakra practice, I happened upon a short piece by the late Lama Ngawang Kalden from Dzamthang that strikes at the heart of this matter.

In a compilation of his writings and talks, there is a short text within his Cycle of Instructions for Visualizing the Profound that has a passage on how the ultimate manifests as contemplative experience through the vajrayana process of embodying the Kālachakra deity.