Sky over Tibet

A long time coming, actually a year to the day since my last January 13th posting, The Quintessence of Zhentong from the collection of 108 Quintessential Instructions, I thought to revisit these instructions with a complimentary post.

Each of these instructions was meant to act as a pith directive to the practitioner about how to cultivate a particular outlook on the nature of reality through contemplative experience. These 108 Quintessential Instructions of the Jonang continue to be taught and transmitted within the living tradition, and the range of these instructions is testament to the diversity of Buddhist practices preserved within Tibetan literature.^[1]

Maybe its the dark magnetism of impending all hallows' eve, but I'm feeling a mischievous urge to rile up all the ghouls and goblins of unapologetic dogmatism and have them stare in unison — — into The Crystal Mirror. That is, The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems by Thuken Losang Chökyi Nyima (1737-1802). Fortunately, this classical Tibetan polemical text is now available to the English reading world due to the clear translation of Geshe Lhundup Sopa and the lucid editing of Roger Jackson under the umbrella of The Library of Tibetan Classics series (Wisdom Publications, '09).^[1]

Over the summer, I was browsing through a Tibetan book shop and I happened upon the recently reproduced collected works of Rongton Shakya Gyaltsen (1367-1449). As I opened the first volume to look at the table of contents, my eyes were drawn to the title, A Praise to the Great Omniscient Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen.^[1]

Rongton was a fascinating figure whose writings have not received much attention by western scholars to date. He was the founder of Nalendra Monastery located north of Lhasa, the seat of the Nalendrapa sub-order of the Sakya tradition. Among his numerous teachers were Sonam Zangpo (1341-1433), a disciple of three of Dolpopa’s main student's, Chogle Namgyal (1306-1386), Nyawon Kunga Pal (1285-1379), and Sazang Mati Panchen (1294-1376). Rongton was also a main teacher of Shakya Chokden (1428-1507), one of the most prominent zhentong exponents of the Sakya tradition. He was a teacher of Zhonu Pal (1392-1481), the author of the Blue Annals, and a teacher of the 7th Karmapa, Chodrak Gyatso (1454-1506).^[2]

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.”

Without jumping the gun (as we continue to set the text), I thought to write a post with the hope to help contextualize a forthcoming publication in the Tibetan language on the essential zhentong works by the Jonang master from Dzamthang, Ngawang Tsoknyi Gyatso (1880-1940).^[1]

Zhentong — the contemplative view that the ultimate nature of reality is empty of all extraneous superficial characteristics while profusely full of the qualities that define enlightenment — has become a hallmark of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. From its early articulation by Tibetan forefathers of the Jonangpa in the eleventh century, up to Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen’s (1292-1361) formal codification, and on through later authors such as Tāranātha (1575-1635), zhentong philosophical thinking has revealed itself to be complex, nuanced, and manifold.

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]

Are there Geluk zhentongpas? This is a question that I've been asking for some time. Fortunately, a set of rare texts that were recently recovered from Tibet may shed some light on this. Made available in late 2007, there are four published books by two authors of the Geluk tradition that deserve particular attention. These manuscripts were collected from library archives in Tibet and reproduced via computer input as part of the longer Mes po'i shul bzhag series published by China’s Tibetology Publishing House (Beijing, 2007). This set of works includes the three volume Collected Works of Gungru Gyaltsen Zangpo (1383-1450), and one volume from the writings of Kunkhyen Lodrö Rinchen Sengé (15th cent.).^[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:

Thinking about this well structured collection of 108 instructions, I thought to pick a few and post them. Feeling predictable, I wanted to start with what you may expect to find on this blog, the instructions on zhentong (#25). However, as we read through this instruction, its presentation is perhaps less obvious than expected (or maybe not).

What makes this particular instruction so interesting is that it seems to be the only surviving fragment of the writings attributed to the Tibetan master Tsen Khawoché (b. 1021), a major figure in the transmission of zhentong and the Five Treatises of Maitreya.”^[1] Again, we have to thank Kunga Drolchok (1507-1566) for that. Hopefully more of his writings will turn up.

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.