When Yogācāra took over

The Streetlight effect (graphics Datamotive)

The Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma (s. tridharmacakravartana) was first mentioned in the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the works of the Yogācāra school. This sūtra was translated into Chinese in 440 CE. It is thought to have been developed between the 1st and the 3rd century CE.

In this sūtra, the first turning of the wheel concerns the selflessness of the Hearers (śrāvaka, “hīnayāna”) and the second turning of the wheel the emptiness of the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures (“mahāyāna”). The underlying intent (s. saṃdhi t. dgongs pa) of  these “hīnayāna” and “mahāyāna” approaches require further explication, “for their meaning has to be drawn out (s. neyārtha, t. drang don) through the fully explicit (s. nitārtha, t. nges don) hermeneutic of the [ ] analysis of consciousness”, i.e. the three patterns of consciousness (s. trisvabhāva) according to Yogācāra. The Buddha Nature doctrine (tathāgatagarbha) is also included in the Third turning of the wheel, and as a fully explicit (nitārtha) teaching[1].

“This turning was the most marvelous and wonderful that had ever occurred in the world. It had no superior nor did it contain any implicit meaning nor occasion any controversy[2].”

Yogācāra reframes Buddhism according to its own views and needs and doesn’t refrain from depreciating those who “resist”, often through words put into the mouth of the Buddha uttering the fully explicit sūtras of the third turning. The more positive approach of “consciousness” and “the Great Self” (Buddha Nature) allows for future positive practices to approach and “realize” (t. rtogs pa) “true reality” in its various forms and stages (s. tattva), including deity practice. A philosophical understanding and even a more “mystic” or “inconceivable” abiding in “emptiness”, although liberating, is not enough to develop “luminous” or “divine” qualities, that allow for the attainment of the full potential of a Buddha’s trikāya.

This implies that the views of great Buddhist teachers from the past, such as Nāgārjuna, sometimes called “the Second Buddha”, could be in contradiction with the doctrines (and practices) of Yogācāra. To save past great teachers from their limited views, and to use their scriptural authority, later writings (pseudepigrapha, apocrypha, etc.) could be attributed to them, in which they adapt their first and second turning views to the correct, fully explicit third turning ones. It is also good for the unity of a Buddhist community and allows to integrate earlier teachings in a progressive curriculum. This was also to become the blueprint for the development of Buddhism in Tibet.

In this way Nāgārjuna could be considered to have taught Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and even Tantra, teaching at different levels, for different individuals, following their progression. There is no longer a contradiction in Nāgārjuna as the author of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the Bodhicittavivaraṇa, the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa (Dà zhìdù lùn), the Path and Grounds of the Guhyasamāja, etc. With time passing Nāgārjuna’s view seemed to become more and more clear and precise… Of course the earlier views of Nāgārjuna would have to be re-interpreted through the most recent ones.

In Yogācāra Buddhism (Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra) transformation is central. Transformation is possible because of a more positive approach. States of purification and consciousness can be targeted, attained, realized, “measured”, and so can positive qualities and cognitions (jñāna). Qualities can be symbolized by attributes of deities, they can be visualized, and when properly integrated, they can appear “spontaneously” in dreams, visions, etc. as signs of progress. When Tantras are incorporated in the Yogācāra curriculum (or develop out of it…), they open up further possibilities.

Once former views have gradually integrated in a mainstream view and have been properly digested, and the associated polemics have been pacified, they are no longer a threat. We can have a look at how e.g. the Kagyu school looked at the evolution of Buddhism through Yogācārin eyes.

“The Buddha taught that of all the progressively subtle ways of explaining the true nature of reality, the ultimate description one can make is that the true nature of reality is the true nature of mind, the union of luminous clarity and emptiness[3].”

In practice, the union of luminosity and emptiness is the combination of Yogācāra ("luminosity") and Madhyamaka ("emptiness"). 

A song by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso summarizes the Buddha’s teaching of “the union of luminous clarity and emptiness” in five “schools” and steps. It is called the Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness and can be found in the online e-book Dancer of Great Bliss (t. bDe chen gyi gar mkhan).

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso (Dancer of Great Bliss)

“1. The Way to Meditate on Selflessness
In order to gain knowledge about the abiding nature of reality,
Know that the five aggregates are not the self
And that the mind believing in the self is not the self, either,
And when you gain certainty in this, rest right within that.

2. The Way to Meditate in the Mind-Only Tradition
Since perceived objects are the confused projections of habitual tendencies, they do not truly exist.
Therefore, the mind that perceives them does not truly exist either.
When you gain certainty that reality is empty of this duality,
Settle naturally into that—without contrivance, let go and relax.

3. The Way to Meditate in the Autonomy Tradition
Since they are neither one nor many, phenomena have no inherent nature.
Since they neither arise, abide, nor cease, thoughts have no inherent nature.
Since there is neither bondage nor liberation, the disturbing states of mind have no inherent nature.
Knowing this well, rest within great emptiness.

4. The Way to Meditate in the Consequence Tradition
Existent, nonexistent, and so forth,
Empty, not empty, and so forth,
Permanence, extinction, and so forth—
Genuine reality transcends all such conceptual fabrications.

5. The Way to Meditate in the Empty-of-Other Tradition
When we analyze this mind, we cannot find any essence,
But when we do not analyze, experiences of luminosity are unceasing.
Therefore, mind is luminosity and emptiness, primordially inseparable,
And this is known as luminous clarity, the buddha nature[4].”

I will quote parts of the explanation by Karl Brunnhölzl in his book The Center of the Sunlit Sky[5] to go into more detail about the view of the Kagyu Tradition, resuming the Buddha’s teaching of “the union of luminous clarity and emptiness” in five “schools” and steps.

1. “The first step—the meditation on personal identitylessness, or looking for a self in relation to our five aggregates.”

2. “Now, from the second step (Cittamātra) onward, we deal only with phenomenal identitylessness. This second step of “mere mind” basically says that all our experiences, whatever they and their objects may look like, do not occur anywhere other than within our mind. In other words, both the apprehending subject and the apprehended object are of a mental nature.”

3. “The third step in the progressive stages of meditation on emptiness is named after the Autonomists [Svatantrika] and refers to emptiness as a spacelike nonimplicative negation. Even if we realize that there are neither really existent outer objects nor subjects to perceive them, there is still the subtle clinging to the reality of our mere mental experience free from perceiver and perceived.”

4. “The fourth step in the progressive stages of meditation on emptiness is called the stage of Consequentialists and presents emptiness as utter freedom from discursiveness. As was explained, any nonimplicative negation is still a conceptual object and thus a reference point. So even the nonimplicative negation of emptiness in the sense of the mere absence of a real nature, nonarising, and such (as in the third step) is still a subtle reference point. In order for our mind to be able to fully relax within the space of the expanse of dharmas free from center or edge, it has to let go of even its most subtle grasping at any reference point including the freedom from reference points. This is the space of the actual freedom from all discursiveness that we allow for during the fourth step.”

5. “The fifth step in the progressive stages of meditation on emptiness is named after Shentong-Madhyamaka and presents emptiness as inseparable from mind’s luminosity. Since the very freedom from discursiveness and reference points described in the last step is not just some blank space or mere absence (which would be the extreme of extinction or nihilism), it is also described as luminosity, or the unity of wisdom and expanse. Hence, in terms of the actual nature of mind, the fifth stage is not really an additional or higher stage above the freedom from discursiveness.”

The Kagyu tradition focuses on “the eventual experiential unity of the last two steps [4 and 5]”: emptiness and luminosity. But in reality and in practice, Luminosity swallows emptiness “whole and soul”, and follows Ratnākaraśānti’s “Sheer Luminosity” (t. gsal ba tsam s. prakāśamātra), centered on “deity practice”, as do the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

As it says in Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso’s song, “And this is known as luminous clarity, the buddha nature”, the “Great Self” with emptiness contained in its stomach. It may be called “Yogacara-Madhyamaka”, “Great Yogacara-Madhyamaka”, “other-emptiness” (t. gzhan stong), it remains Yogācāra.

Karl Brunnhölzl writes “[ ] what is called Shentong is nothing other than the Yogācāra (Yoga Practice) system of Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, also called “the lineage of vast activity.” He adds in a note

“In its most general sense, in all Buddhist schools, it just refers to the practice of yoga, i.e., meditation practice as opposed to study and reflection (in this sense it is also used in the title and content of Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses on the Yogic Practice of Bodhisattvas [Catuḥśataka]).”

The practice of “Yoga” in a Yogācāra and Tantric sense is always centered on deity practice (unifying macrocosm and microcosm). Here too, the above mentioned Āryadeva, supposedly Naragjuna’s student, has this and other Yogācāra texts attributed to him, and even Tantric texts. Yogācāra authors are without scruples. In a future blog I will give another example of this Yogācāra/Shentong strategy of recuperating earlier teachers for their cause.

Religions evolve, and may evolve differently in different times and places, and the narratives change accordingly. Is it acceptable for Western Buddhists to simply follow the latest sectarian narrative of Buddhism’s history as it is presented to them by their teachers, and by the religious literature recommended by them? Wouldn’t it be far more interesting to find out how, when and why the narratives changed? Markus Vinzent thinks so and made some interesting discoveries for Christianity.

“History, as I have tried to show, is much more retrospection than reception and, accordingly, more retrospective reconstruction than reproduction. To put it another way, the subject of any historiography is its author. The historian is an actor in and of the story of history, not a passive listener to stories told. The protagonists who appear in historian’s stories and the evidence on which these stories are based are always selected and shaped by those who write and interact with them. And writers use the narratives, protagonists and evidence that have been conveyed to them in various and unpredictable ways and from their respective perspectives and contexts. We write history as a chronological narrative, but we also retrospectively create it from our current point of view; what sounds to us to be representative of the past is, in fact, eminently subjective. We cannot escape this subjective moment. The best we can do is to bring our own subjectivity into conversation with that of the authors of our sources and their readers. This is exactly how I understand the discourse of scholarship, with regard to early Christianity and in other contexts as well: as creating a conversation open to those who want to share, expand or correct this story, who love it and even devote their lives to it – as I enthusiastically do with so many of my days.” Markus Vinzent (Resetting the Origins of Christianity, A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings

Looking for something in the Light

Update: I just learned the passing away of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche (1935- 22/06/2024). Very grateful for everything he taught us

***

[1] See Keenan, John (2000), Scripture on the Explication of the Underlying Meaning, Berkeley: Numata Center

[2] Keenan, John (2000), p. 49

[3] Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, Nāgārjuna, Ari Goldfield - The Sun of Wisdom, Teachings on the Noble Nāgārjuna's Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Shambhala, 2003

[4] stong nyid sgom rim/
gang zag gi bdag med ni/
gnas lugs rtogs pa'i shes rab ldan 'gyur na//
bdag 'dzin sems kyang bdag tu ma grub par//
phung lnga gang zag bdag tu ma grub cing*//
nges shes rnyed na de'i ngang bzhag par bya//

sems tsam ni/
bag chags 'khrul snang yin phyir gzung ba med//
gnyis stong don la nges shes rnyed pa na//
de phyir 'dzin pa'i sems kyang ma grub pas//
de'i ngang rang babs ma bcos lhod kyis glod//

rang rgyud ni/
gcig dang du ma bral phyir chos kun rang bzhin med//
bcing dang grol ba med phyir nyon mongs rang bzhin med//
skye 'gag gnas pa med phyir rnam rtog rang bzhin med//
de ltar legs par shes te stong chen ngang du zhog//

thal 'gyur ni/
yod dang med pa la sogs dang*//
rtag dang chad pa la sogs pa'i//
stong dang mi stong la sogs dang*//
spros pa kun bral shes par bya//

gzhan stong ni/
sems de dpyad na ngo bo ma dmigs kyang*//
gsal stong dbye ba med par gdod nas grub//
ma dpyad gsal nyams 'gags med shar ba'i phyir//
'od gsal bde gshegs snying po zhes su grags//

[5] Karl Brunnhölzl, The Center of the Sunlit Sky, Madhyamaka in the Kagyu Tradition, Nitartha Institute Series, 2004, p.