Letting Daylight into Magic

Stephan Batchelor touchs on this tension between Dzogchen and Gelug practices when he discusses the Dorje Shugden issue.

One can understand why the Dalai Lamas would tolerate and even embrace Nyingma views in order to honor the historical heritage of Tibet, to affirm unity among the diverse communities of the Tibetan nation, even to be true to their own spiritual intuitions, But however justified such a position might be in personal or political terms, it should not obscure the real and potentially divisive philosophical and doctrinal differences that exist between the Nyingma and Gelugpa ideologies.

The Nyingma teaching of Dzogchen regards awareness (Tib., rig pa) as the innate self-cognizant foundation of both samsara and nirvana. Rig pa is the intrinsic, uncontrived nature of mind, which a Dzogchen master is capable of directly pointing out to his students. For the Nyingmapa, Dzogchen represents the very apogee of what the Buddha taught, whereas Tsongkhapa’s view of emptiness as just a negation of inherent existence, implying no transcendent reality, verges on nihilism.

For the Gelugpas, Dzogchen succumbs to the opposite extreme: that of delusively clinging to something permanent and self-existent as the basis of reality. They see Dzogchen as a return to the Hindu ideas that Buddhists resisted in India, and a residue of the Ch’an (Zen) doctrine of Hva-shang Mahayana, proscribed at the time of the early kings. Moreover, some Kagyu and Nyingma teachers of the Rime (“impartial”) revival movement in eastern Tibet in the nineteenth century even began to promote a synthesis between the forbidden Jonangpa philosophy and the practice of Dzogchen.

For the followers of Shugden this is not an obscure metaphysical disagreement, but a life-and-death struggle for truth in which the destiny of all sentient beings is at stake. The bodhisattva vow, taken by every Tibetan Buddhist, is a commitment to lead all beings to the end of anguish and the realization of buddhahood. Following Tsongkhapa, the Gelugpas maintain that the only way to achieve this is to understand non-conceptually that nothing whatsoever inherently exists. Any residue, however subtle, of an attachment to inherent existence works against the bodhisattva’s aim and perpetuates the very anguish he or she seeks to dispel.

I am left wondering what the Dalai Lama's position is regarding the disputes between the claims of Je Tsongkhapa and Gorampa...

Gorampa vs Tsongkhapa

Gorampa, a Sakya scholar, was a fierce critic of Tsongkhapa's philosophy and was a proponent of eliminating concepts to achieve an understanding of ultimate truth. As a result, his books were banned for sometime by the Gelugpa hierarchy in power in Tibet. With the ascendency of the Rime movement, his understanding of Nagarjuna has been assimilated into the other two schools (Nyimgma and Kagyu).

This is worth reading in it's entirety, although I believe it mischaracterises Tsongkahapa's view as being in disagreement with Chandrakirti that Buddha does not have concepts, there is also no mention of the fact that Tsongkhapa's method is intended to lead to a non-conceptual experience of ultimate truth:

Gorampa employs a fourfold negation known as the tetralemma (mtha’ bzhi) in order to refute all concepts in their entirety. Use of the tetralemma as a tool in Buddhist philosophy can be traced to Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārika, in which he famously remarks, “Neither from itself, nor from another, nor from both, nor without a cause, does anything, anywhere, ever, arise”.

Gorampa understands the tetralemma as a tool that one uses to analyze the ultimate truth. One uses logic and reasoning to arrive at a conceptual understanding of the nominal ultimate, and meditative practices allow one to reach a direct, nonconceptual realization of the actual ultimate truth. The logical reasoning involved in the fourfold negation is implemented by ordinary persons in order to understand what the ultimate truth is like, but logic alone is not sufficient to arrive at a direct realization of the actual ultimate.

Gorampa understands the tetralemma as a tool that one uses to analyze the ultimate truth. One uses logic and reasoning to arrive at a conceptual understanding of the nominal ultimate, and meditative practices allow one to reach a direct, nonconceptual realization of the actual ultimate truth. The logical reasoning involved in the fourfold negation is implemented by ordinary persons in order to understand what the ultimate truth is like, but logic alone is not sufficient to arrive at a direct realization of the actual ultimate.

This particular way of understanding the tetralemma is, again, at odds with the views of Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa contends that Gorampa's assertion that all concepts must be eliminated entirely amounts to nihilistic quietism. Tsongkhapa understands each of the four extremes of the tetralemma as being qualified according to the conventional or ultimate truths. According to him, existence is negated ultimately, while nonexistence is negated conventionally.

This debate between Gorampa and Tsongkhapa is based on each philosopher's understanding of the ways in which negation functions within the tetralemma. Tsongkhapa upholds the law of double negation elimination (dgag pa gnyis kyi rnal ma go ba), a logical law stating that the negation of a negation implies an affirmation. The negation of existence, therefore, implies the acceptance of nonexistence, while the negation of nonexistence implies the assertion of existence. Because of this, Tsongkhapa's understanding of the tetralemma involves a complex system of logical statements, each qualified according to one of the two truths. If one accepts double negation elimination, then it makes no sense for both existence and nonexistence to be negated, unless these negations are qualified in certain ways.

Gorampa, on the other hand, does not adhere to double negation in the context of the tetralemma. Instead, he understands the tetralemma as a succession of four negations that are applied to the four possible ways of conceiving of the status of the ultimate truth. Because the ultimate truth is nonconceptualizable, Gorampa contends that Tsongkhapa's understanding of the tetralemma is incomplete, because it doesn’t negate enough (literally, it underpervades [khyab chung ba]). While Tsongkhapa's model successfully refutes the extreme view of existence at the ultimate level, Gorampa argues that it does not eliminate all extreme views ultimately and in their entirety.

Tsongkhapa argues that a negation of all four extremes at the ultimate level contradicts logic, but Gorampa contends that an elimination of logic is specifically the tetralemma's purpose. By negating all possibilities for logical, conceptual thought, the only recourse is to abandon concepts completely. True freedom from conceptual constructs lies outside of the scope of conceptual thought, and is therefore inexpressible. Gorampa maintains, however, that because ordinary persons utilize conceptual thought, they necessarily construe the ultimate truth as an object of conceptual constructs (that is, they construe it as the nominal ultimate). As such, one must first use conceptual reasoning to refute each of the four extremes, but these concepts must eventually be abandoned.

In other words, because all four extremes are negated under the analysis of the tetralemma, Gorampa concludes that a correct realization of the ultimate truth must be something that is other than these conceptualizations of and dichotomizations into existence and nonexistence. As such, the ultimate truth cannot be described using these terms. And, since these are the only possible ways of speaking of or conceptualizing the status of the existence of things, once they are all negated, one is forced to conclude that the ultimate truth cannot be described linguistically or conceptually. The actual ultimate truth transcends the boundaries of language and conceptual thought. However, Gorampa still maintains that logic and analysis are essential in arriving at a state of nonconceptuality.

As I read this essay, I was struck by the following:

After one has successfully negated the first extreme, Gorampa concedes that a person's natural inclination is to assume that the negation of existence implies the assertion of nonexistence. If one were to stop his logical analysis at this point, Gorampa argues that one would adhere to a nihilist view; failure to correctly negate nonexistence can lead one to wrongly believe that nonexistence is ultimately real. In order to show that the acceptance of nonexistence is untenable, Gorampa argues that the concepts of existence and nonexistence depend upon each other; one makes no sense without the other. And, since the concept of existence has already been negated, it makes no sense to conceive of nonexistence independently.

Indeed this appears to be central to his disagreement with Tsongkhapa who maintains that the negation of an opposite is an affirming negative as explained later in the article thus the negation of existence affirms non-existence and vice-versa. Tsongkhapa doesn't leave his analysis there either arguing that the extreme of existence is eliminated by understanding emptiness and the extreme of non-existence is eliminated by understanding dependent relationship.

Generic Images

This post is my ramblings about approaches to meditation and the realisation of emptiness. Within the Tibetan Buddhist world there is a long standing debate (~500 years) about the use of conceptual minds to realise emptiness firstly with a conceptual mind realising emptiness through a generic image and then with a mental direct perceiver of emptiness through the "gradual wearing away" of said generic image. This use of generic images to realise emptiness is at the heart of Je Tsongkhapa's Gelugpa/Kadampa tradition. Sean Robsville explains in detail the use of generic images to understand objects and how they differ from Plato's ideal forms.

When Je Tsongkhapa broke away from the Sakya tradition this use of conceptual minds was at the core of the philosophical difference in the Gelug path; as illuminated in his debates with Gorampa.

For myself, the differences between Atiyoga practices and the gradualist path is something of a connundrum as I have an strong connection to Je Tsongkhapa's tradition but am also attracted to Atiyoga practices of technique-less meditation such as that taught by Adyashanti or to a lesser extent in Dzogchen.

One of the most thought provoking of the teachings I have been studying on STTP is the rejection of Atiyoga (or simultaneist or Hashang) meditation as a true path to realise the actual nature of reality as intended by the Buddha when he exhorted his followers to attain true cessations. The argument is that all one would be left with when one has abandoned conceptual thought is the conventional nature of the mind, empty of form and empty of conceptual thought, not empty of inherent existence which is the object we need to focus on to attain liberation and enlightenment according to Je Tsongkhapa.

I've discussed this with online sangha, and include the salient posts here:

[ME]: A question that has arisen from STTP study regarding meditation on the nature of the mind free from concepts. I'm struggling to see how this is an invalid approach to perceiving emptiness. Can anyone help? My understanding is that Self-Grasping is a conceptual mind, therefore, if it is stopped as part of this form of meditation, why wouldn't emptiness be perceived?

[SANGHA]: One thing that helped me was the short section in Universal Compassion on Close Placement of mindfulness of mind (p. 64). Then the difference between meditating on the emptiness of mind versus merely stopping the flow of conceptual thoughts became more clear.

[SANGHA]: Hi, I had some thoughts about this. In answer to your initial question: it is an invalid approach to perceiving emptiness, because such a mind does not perceive emptiness either conceptually or non-conceptually. It experiences only a lack of conceptual thought. Not a lack of inherent existence. Although during such a meditation self grasping and all conceptual thoughts temporarily cease, this is temporary, because this meditation does not directly oppose self grasping or its seeds,or the imprints of self grasping. Due to the imprints of self grasping, all phenomena will still continue to appear to be inherently existent (dual appearance) . Due to the seeds of self grasping remaining, the mind of self grasping will again arise. In his root text on the mahamudra the first Panchen Lama wrote: The mind that is free from conceptualisation, Is merely a level of conventional mind; It is not the mind's ultimate nature. Therefore seek instruction from qualified Masters. (CLofB p152) The mind that realises emptiness non-conceptually, is called a yogic direct perceiver. The way these non-conceptual minds are generated is quite unlike the way that other non-conceptual minds are generated: in short though, they do so in dependence upon a union of tranquil abiding and superior seeing, which in turn depend upon first meditating with an inferential cognizer and re-cognizers which are both conceptual minds. Finally just to add, I think that CLoB outline "Avoiding mistaking the introduction to the conventional nature of the mind for an introduction to the ultimate nature of the mind" (pg151 in my copy) directly deals with your point. x

[ME]: That's getting to the issue directly, and believe it or not I was reading that very section yesterday. I might have a block here, but this seems contradictory: "such a mind does not perceive emptiness either conceptually or non-conceptually. It experiences only a lack of conceptual thought. Not a lack of inherent existence. Although during such a meditation self grasping and all conceptual thoughts temporarily cease" - if self-grasping ceases and the mind is still aware surely emptiness is perceived...?

[SANGHA]: Self grasping conceives of inherent existence. When self grasping has a temporary cessation, inherently existent objects would not be conceived. However the issue here is what our mind ascertains and thereby realises. In the meditation you mention, when we perceive the mind directly what the mind ascertains is clarity and cognizing and it experiences a lack of conceptualisation (it does not 'look' at anything else). This mind can then, in fact should, ascertain firmly how the mind and its object lack or are empty of the previously misconceived inherent existence. But this would be done quite specifically, and in dependence upon initially understanding emptiness using reasons and an inferential cognizer (ie conceptually). x

[ME]: if what is perceived is the clarity and cognising of the mind and self grasping is not present one will be perceiving the ultimate nature of that clarity. But now I think I'm just repeating the same argument.

[ME]: Hang on, if the mere appearance of an object is perceived directly - the object lacking inherent existence, is meditating on that mere appearance not a true path? Or is it merely a conventional truth and therefore won't get you anywhere... So is what you are saying when you (and Geshela and Neil) say conventional nature of the mind in this context you mean these mediators are focused on the mere appearance of the mind as opposed to the lack of inherent existence of the mind. Is that right? I though we could conjoin our experience of things as mere appearance and our understanding of emptiness as a correct and effective path a'la tantra

[SANGHA]: Yes that is right, meditator is focused on the mere appearance of the mind as opposed to the lack of inherent existence of the mind. And yes again, we can then conjoin our experience of mere appearance and understanding of emptiness by understanding the 4 profundities. This is precisely the path of such a mahamudra meditator, but conjoing this meditation with meditation on emptiness is done quite deliberately and specifically as previously mentioned. The mahamudra meditator uses the conventional nature of the mind to attain tranquil abiding because it is an easier less subtle object with which to progress to tranquil abiding than the ultimate nature of the mind. However having done so it is then easier (in comparison to other objects of TA training) for such a meditator to proceed to realise emptiness, this is one of the main benefits of choosing this object as a object of tranquil abiding training. x

More to follow...