scholarly journals Rangjung dorje's variegations of mind: ordinary awareness and pristine awareness in tibetan buddhist literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Sheehy

Examination of Tibetan Buddhist contemplative and psychological understandings of the operations of ordinary awareness (rnam shes) in comparison with pristine awareness (ye shes), based on a seminal text by the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339).

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 187
Author(s):  
Linghui Zhang

Mahāmudrā—an Indo-Tibetan phenomenon of Buddhist spirituality—constitutes in its systematic presentation a path that maps out the mystical quest for direct experience of ultimate reality. Despite the post-15th century bKa’-brgyud attempts at a codified Mahāmudrā genealogy, the early Tibetan sources speak little with regards to how the different Indian Mahāmudrā threads made their way over the Himalayas. To fill this gap, the article investigates, via philological and historical approaches, the lineage accounts in the 12th-century Xixia Mahāmudrā materials against the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist landscape. Three transmission lines are detected. Among them, two lines are attested by later Tibetan historiographical accounts about Mahāmudrā, and thus belong to an Indo-Tibetan continuum of the constructed Buddhist yogic past based upon historical realities—at least as understood by Tibetans of the time. The third one is more of a collage patching together different claims to spiritual legacy and religious authority—be they historically based or introspectively projected. Not only does the Mahāmudrā topography, jointly fueled by these three transmissions, reveal the Xixia recognition and imagination of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist legacies, it also captures the complexities of the multi-faceted picture of Mahāmudrā on its way over the Himalayas during the 11th/12th century.


1939 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-251
Author(s):  
B. C. Law

Though much has been written on the Jātakas or Buddha's Birth-stories, there is no consensus of opinion as yet about the exact signification of the term Jātaka as employed in Buddhist literature. One may correctly say, no doubt, with the late Professor Rhys Davids that the Jātaka proper is atītavatthu or the “story of the past”. It is precisely in this sense that the Bharhut labels designate many of the illustrations. Though this is generally the case with the Jatakas, Professor B. M. Barua contends for a definition of Jataka which embraces also the paccuppanna-vatthu, or the “story of the present”. He points out that according to the Culla-Niddesa, a work of the Pāli Canon, which cannot be dated earlier than the third century b.c., the term Jātaka is obviously applied alike to the story of the present and to that of the past, the undermentioned four Suttantas being mentioned as typical examples of Jātaka:—(1) Mahāpadāniya.(2) Mahā-Sudassanīya.(3) Mahā-Govindiya.(4) Maghādeviya.


Bibliosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
A. A. Bazarov

The article discusses the “additional” course of Buddhist education lam-rim, which was taught in the monasteries of Northwest China, Mongolia and Transbaikalia (19th – early 20th centuries). The databases of the Buddhist scholastic collection “Choira” of the Center of Oriental manuscripts and xylographs in the Institute of Mongolian Studies, Buddhology and Tibetology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMSBT SO RAN), as well as traditional bibliographic handbooks – “garchaks”, make it possible to understand that the texts of lam-rims are an integral part of the Buddhist book culture of this region. Our analysis has demonstrated that the study of this scholastic subject in the monasteries of Northwest China, Mongolia and Transbaikalia (19th – beginning 20th centuries) was based on a variedTibetan Buddhist literature from fundamental works of Indian classics to popular works of local scholastics. It is also necessary to emphasize that if to compare this section (lam-rim) of Tibetan scholastic literature “Choira” (in IMBT SB RAS) with the other sections (Pramana, Prajna-Paramita, Madhyamika Vinaya, Abhidharma) we find that the largest number of works of local authors are found in lam-rim. An important result of the research is the historical fact that the books of the Buryat monastic printing houses (Aga, Tsugol, Egita, Ana datsans of Trans-Baikal region) make it possible to understand the level of development of lam-rims literature in this region (19th – beginning 20th centuries) in the field of writing and publishing scholastic works in Northwest China, Mongolia and Transbaikalia. The study of authorship of lamrim texts stored in the IMBT SB RAS can confirm that, thanks to the works of representatives of these cross-border regions, a kind of Renaissance of Tibetan scholasticism took place in the Buddhist culture of the entire Inner Asia. A special role in this process was played by the Amdo, Mongolian and Buryat monasteries. It may be assumed that representatives of the historical Amdo region (the territory where Tibetans and Mongols lived together), Mongolia and Transbaikalia in these centuries created a culture of mass writing of Buddhist educational and philosophical literature.


Author(s):  
Jean-Luc Achard

Dzogchen (“Great Perfection”) is a philosophical and yogic tradition largely developed within the Bönpo tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Its first datable sources surface on the religious scene of Tibet sometime around the late 10th to the early 11th century with the discoveries of Treasure text (gter ma) that are supposed to have been hidden during the 8th century and earlier, as well as with the seminal composition of texts and commentaries that are based on these Treasures. Some of its teachings are also presented as having been transmitted orally from archaic, undatable times through an uninterrupted lineage of masters. Groups of lay Bönpo practitioners, later followed by monastics of the same tradition, started to gather around the discoverers and authors of these works, thus creating the first postdynastic religious communities of Bön dispersed throughout Tibet. Deeply enriched by the integration of a vast amount of traditional Buddhist literature, the Bön tradition absorbed teachings from all other Tibetan Buddhist lineages. The core of these teachings is made up of profoundly secret instructions said to enable practitioners to reach the state of total Buddhahood in a single lifetime. The quintessence of these teachings focuses upon yogic techniques centered on the contemplation of light sources, such as the sun, the moon, or a butter lamp. Particular methods are also applied in a completely dark room in which special visualizations are combined with yogic devices that lead to visionary experiences which are unique throughout Buddhist teachings. These practices based on colored visions produce various signs manifesting at the end of the practitioner’s life such as the famed Rainbow Body (‘ja’ lus).


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 233-239
Author(s):  
Vesna A. Wallace

Studies in originality, authorship, and intertextuality in the contexts of the South Asian and Tibetan Buddhist literature are indispensible for uncovering the direct and indirect referential connections and the diverse modes of their production in an extensive mosaic of Buddhist texts. They also highlight the multifarious functions of textual reuses and re-workings in cultural productions and religious and literary reinvigorations. Moreover, a reintegration of explicit and silent citations and creative paraphrases and a recirculation of narrative adaptations, which have been often sidelined in the study of Buddhist literature, have been shown to be integral to the formation of a textual authority and to the restructuring of cultural and doctrinal meanings.


Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Majer

This chapter covers three main works of Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar (1635–1723), who was the first head of Mongolian Buddhism. All three prayers translated in this chapter were composed in the Tibetan language. The first of them remains the most important prayer in the daily practice of Mongolian Buddhists, thus being the main prayer of Mongolian Buddhism in general, in which the texts of different Tibetan Buddhist traditions and lineages are otherwise used. The second translated prayer is a food offering text, often used in tantric rituals, and the third prayer is connected to a mantra recitation and the sādhana (“method of realization”) of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. It contains a profound tantric doctrinal meaning and is closely related to the soyombo writing system created by Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar himself.


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