Ultra Processed Dharma

Photo Food Industry in the 21st Century Pestle Analysis

It’s often a pleasure and release for me to turn to Tibetan texts from the 12-13th century because they tend to be quite matter of fact, especially in the “Zhus lan” genre, compared to later religious literature. “Zhus lan” (or Dris lan) texts present themselves as notes of questions and answers between a master and his student(s). Their style is often simple and direct. The exchanges find place between “professional” or at least serious contemplatives and the questions and answers are mostly quite pragmatic. Canonical quotes may be used, but the matters at heart that are discussed don’t get an overly scholastic or theological treatment, rather a very practical one. The exchanges also reflect how official doctrines were understood or interpreted on a personal level.

Teachers in the "Zhus lan" excercise seem to be unaware of representing a school’s doctrine in front of a mixed audience, because these exhanges tend to be private discussions that happen to have been noted down, which does not exclude that “Zhus lan” could have become a genre in itself and that notes of made up question and answer sessions could have been attributed to certain masters in order to put specific words and jargon in their mouths. We need to remain careful. Yet, when I am lucky enough to read what appear to be quite spontaneous and direct exchanges, I take my chance.

In the post-classic period of Tibetan Buddhism, due to changing balances of power, the importance of upcoming theocratic structures, the growing sense of identity of lineages, the rivalry among lineages and the associated politics and spiritual market dynamics made lineages and specific masters stand out as “brands” producing “premium” products. Confidence in the value of their brand and products and in their storytelling was essential. Products were processed, reprocessed and ultra processed in the course of series of commentaries, sub-commentaries, interpretations, reinterpretations, systematizations, reorganizations, compilations and re-compilations, leading to seemingly neat doctrines and their associated jargon. These doctrines (many of them finding their final versions only in the 19th century or even later) became the official views of their respective schools and lineages and were to be applied retroactively, including to texts from the 12-13th century. As if the message of the Buddha, transmitted through uninterrupted lineages from India to Tibet, to the current Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and centers worldwide had always been the same, faithfully exposed and taught by their respective lamas. The productions of many academics unfortunately reflect a similar attitude. Contemporary lamas (and their doctrines) are often used as informers and experts in their fields, what they obviously are. But hagiographies are not reliable historical sources for “lineages” attributed to Indian teachers and siddhas, who (if they indeed did historically exist) are not always the authors of the “canonical” texts that are attributed to them. A lot of fieldwork needs to be done in Tibetan Buddhism, as has already been done partly for Chinese Buddhism. Which Tibetan Buddhist patrons and sponsors would be ready to sponsor this sort of critical academic fieldwork? In the meanwhile, the default position seems to be that hagiographies at least reflect some partial truths, and for the moment having no better than that, hagiographical “facts” are “sometimes” treated as “historical” facts.

Gampopa’s “life and teachings”, as gleaned from e.g. 15th-century hagiographical works written by 15th-century peripatetic yogis are sometimes looked at[1] as proof for “Gampopa’s” conciliatory attitude in the 15th-century controversies between monastic-scholastic and peripatetic-yogic regimes of spiritual practice. If one reads works attributed to Gampopa (the great majority of which were not authored by him) and to his students or later abbots of Gampo, none such tension seems to be specifically mentioned at the time (10-11th century). There is a comparable development in the Shangpa lineage, where the line of views and doctrines of Tārānātha (1575-1634) and Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé (1813-1899) eclipses possible earlier approaches. Their views set the tone including for works attributed to Shangpa masters from the 11th-13th century. If these older works were read into their own light and context, we might learn something different from them, or not… but at least we would know.

It would be a lot of work, probably requiring quite a bit of funding, I know. Those that would be mostly concerned by these matters may not be inclined to finance such critical fieldwork. Who knows where that might lead to. By not doing what is necessary, current academic researchers continue to use by default hagiographical material as “historical” sources and “ultra processed dharma” (15th-19th century) as reference works to read, understand and interpret texts attributed to authors from the 11th-13th century, and base their conclusions on these. Have these texts indeed be written by these 11th-13th century authors or their students? We don’t know yet. Should we not read and interpret those in their own context? It seems to me we should. What is that context exactly? Could it be different from that of the “ultra processed dharma” ? I expect it would be, but let's try and find out to know for sure. Otherwise I am afraid that new technologies, algorithms, methods, etc. could soon make hasty conclusions redundant.   

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[1] Mahāmudrā and the Middle Way: Post-classical Kagyü Discourses on Mind, Emptiness and Buddha-Nature. (2016). Vol. 1. 441 pp. ISBN 13: 978-3-902501-28-8. WSTB No. 90.1. Co-authored with Martina Draszczyk.

“In these different ways, [Gampopa’s] life story revealed more vividly than any treatise how one could be both a learned (mkhas) monk and realized (grub) yogin. The key to reconciling these vocations lay in accommodating the modes of knowledge particular to each: the inferential-representational knowledge of the scholar and the experiential-presentational knowledge of the yogin. In this regard, Sgam po pa’s life and teachings were viewed as paragons of a path of unity beyond extremes. It is time now to close this book with some concluding reflections on this vision of reconciliation by noting some of its Indian antecedents, and showing how it figured in Sgam po pa’s life and teachings, and subsequently shaped the Mahāmudrā exegesis of our four post-classical Bka’ brgyud thinkers.”

Rather than the other way round, i.e. how the four post-classical Bka’ brgyud thinkers shaped the presently taught Mahāmudrā exegesis of Gampopa and his master Milarepa. Only critical intratextual and intertextual fieldwork could tell us more about this.