Category: History

Mountain Doctrine

Part Six Thus he was bucking two popular trends-separation of the classical texts of the great vehicle into isolated systems and separate  Tibetan scholars from sütra and tantra into isolated camps and (2) reduction of the inal path to self-recognition of basic mind. Breaking boundaries between set system: his grand, over-arching, iconoclastic perspective shocked Tibetan scholars his own day to the present. The Sa-gya scholar Ren-da-wa Shön-nu lodrö over three readings-first found it unappealing, then appealing, and then unappealing. Ren-da-wa’s student, Dzong-ka-bab found it so provocative that he took Döl-bo-ba’s views as his chief opponent in his works on the view of emptiness. Dil-bo-ba’s View of Reality Basis and Fruit Un-differentiable  The Ocean of Definitive Meaning is divided into three sections of roughly equal length basis, path, and fruit–preceded by a brief overview and to lowed by a short summary. The basis is the ground on which the spiritual path acts to rid it of peripheral obstructions, thereby yielding the fruit of practice. The basis is the matrix-of-one-gone-thus. which itself is the thoroughly established nature, the uncontaminated primordial wisdom empty of all compounded phenomena-permanent, stable, eternal, everlasting. Not compounded by causes and conditions, the matrix-of-one-gone-thus is intrinsically endowed with ultimate buddha qualities of body, speech mind such as the ten powers, it is not something that did not exist D and is newly produced; it is self-arisen. From this point of view, Do1-bo-ba emphasise that the basis ( the actual way things are even in an ordinary state) and the fruit (as manıfest Buddhahood) are un-differentiable. At the beginning of the Mountain Doctrine he inspiringly speaks of the matrix-of-one-gone-thus as the basic reality and pristine wisdom, and although ultimate Buddha qualities of body, speech, and mind pre-exist in the matrix one-gone-thus, effort at the spiritual path is nevertheless required cause there are two types of effects, separative and produced separative effects being already existent factors that need only to be separated from defilement and do not require production, whereas produced effects have to be generatedthrough practice. 

Mountain Doctrine

Part five Tantras should be understood by means of other Tantras. Sūtras should be understood by means of other Sūtras. Stras should also be understood by means of the Tantras Tantras should also be understood by means of the Sūtras. Both should be understood by means of both. This all-encompassing approach, simultaneously drawing on Sütras and Tantras, puts to pics rather than just the differentiation of systems-to the forefront in a search for meaning. In presentations that are usually considered the classical texts of separate systems, he sees in each of those texts multiple systems crowned by the great middle way. For instance, he considers separate passages of the Sütra Unraveling the Thought, considered by many to be just mind-only, to present the views of mind-only and the great middle way, the latter being ultimate mind-only,’ also called supra mundane mind-only and final mind-only, which is beyond consciousness. Also, in certain Indian treatises usually taken to be strictly mind-only he finds passages teaching conventional mind-only and others teaching the great middle way. Still, Döl-bo-ba’s presentation is by no means a collage drawing a little from here and a little from there and disregarding the rest. Rather, he has a comprehensive overarching perspective born from careful analysis, like other great synthesisers of his period. For him, others had just not seen what the texts themselves were saying, and instead read into classical texts the views of single systems. Since he draws from a great variety of Sütras, tantras, and treatises, Döl-bo-ba’s perspective is syncretic, but it is perhaps synthetic only in the sense that he found within these an exposition of a view beyond what had become the traditional schools. It was not a mere putting together of pieces from here and there. He also criticised the then (and still) popular notion that recognition of Conceptions themselves as the body of attributes of a buddha “would alone bring about enlightenment, “without requiring abandonment of any mis- conceptions. 

Mountain Doctrine

Part Four  The Title The Mountain Doctrine. Ocean of Definitive Meaning: Final Unique Quint Instructions, a long text of247 folios, is a sustained argument about the Buddha-nature, also called the matrix-of-one-gone-thus and matrix-of-one-gone-to-bliss, replete with citations of Sütras, tantras, and Indian treaties and interspersed with objections and answers. It thereby follows the Inherited from India, of a presentation by way of both reasoning and scripture the scriptural citations being so rich that the book can also be considered an inspiring anthology, a veritable treasure-trove of literature about the matrix-of-one-gone-thus. In the dedication of virtue at the end of the book, Döl-bo-ba Shay-rap-gyel-tsen explains the meaning of his title. This final definitive meaning thus of all the excellent profound scriptures of the conqueror Realised through the kindness of foremost venerable lamas rom being illuminated By profound instructional counsel from the mouths of conqueror-children such as the protectors of the three lineages and so forth-Is the mountain doctrine of profound yogic practitioners in isolated mountain retreats, training the entirety of the rivers of definitive meaning of all the elevated pure sütras, tantras, and treatises, and hence is an ocean of definitive meaning, Teaching the unique finality of the spectrum of basis, paths, and fruit and also the spectrum of view, meditation, and behaviour, an hence it is concordant in name and meaning. Since it comments on profound thought, it is a commentary on the conqueror’s thought, And since it comments on all vajra words, it unravels the knots of vajra words, l since it clearly teaches the profound noumenon, it is a lamp to the matrix-of-one-gone-to-bliss, and since it contains all profound scriptures, reasonings, and quintessential instructions, it is also a supreme wish-granting Jewel. His text is aimed at presenting not what is tentative, provisional, and requiring interpretation in the Indian source texts but the definitive meaning of ultimate reality itself, so profound and difficult to realise that it is a doctrine practiced in mountain retreats by yogis. Containing a plethora of citations from Indian sütras and tantras as well as expositions

Mountain Doctrine

Part three The latter two commentaries are said to have been composed using therubric, or grid, of the Kālachakra Tantra, and thus all three are Kālachrelated. Döl-bo-ba speaks of these three as the quintessential instructionstenth-ground bodhisattvas. He also draws on a vast array of sütras, tantraand Indian treatises. Despite having relied on this plethora of Indian sources, the MountainDoctrine was received with amazement and shock. However, Döl-bo-ba alsowas highly lauded and received great offerings from exalted religious figures of the day, among whom he indeed was one of the greatest. He gave teachings sometimes to thousands of persons and at other times to the luminaries of his period. He was invited, along with Bu-dön Rin-chen-drup- another great master of Kalachakra to China by the Yüan dynasty (Mongolian) Emperor Toghon Temür. Neither of them went, and to avoid the emperor’s displeasure Döl-bo-ba “stayed in different isolated areas for fouryears, Concerned about the damage to religious centres and so forth that ensued from a protracted political power struggle, Döl-bo-ba decided to travel to Lhasa and make prayers to the Jo bo image there, which he felt to be the same as the Buddha himself.” Dol po pa had become increasingly disturbed by the extensive damage to the Buddhist communities, temples, and shrines in Tibet due to the great political turmoil that had swept through the land during the protracted power struggle between the Sa skya pa in Gtsang [the western province of Tibet) and the newly arisen Phag mo gru in Dbus [Central Tibet).” Thus, in 1358, at the age of sixty-six, he departed from Jo-nang. Along the way, he gave teachings to the Fifteenth Patriarch of Sa-ğya, Sö-nam-gyel-tsen, who requested that he compose The Great Calculation of the Doctrine, Which Has the Significance of a Fourth Council along with an auto-commentary. Döl-bo-ba audaciously’ titled his work this way because he considered the doctrine of other-emptiness and its implications for the buddha-nature to be like an addition to the famous three councils in India. He also gave lectures that were often so

Mountain Doctrine

Part Two On the basis of both pratyāhara [withdrawal] and dbyāna (concentration), he beheld immeasurable figures of the Buddhas and pure lands. On the basis of prānāyāma (stopping-vitality] and dhāranã [retention], exceptional experience and realisation was born due to the blazing of blissful warmth. During this retreat Döl-bo-ba realized the view of “other-emptiness” but did not speak about it for several years. In 1326 he was installed as the head of the Jo-nang Monastery and in 1327 began work on a gigantic monument-the Glorious Stūpa of the Constellations-which was completed in 1333, restored by Tāranātha in 1621, and refurbished in 1990. Either during or after the building of the Stüpa, for the first time he taught that conventional phenomena are self-empty, in the sense that they lack any self-nature, whereas the ultimate is other-empty, in the sense that it is empty of the conventional but has its own self-nature. This latter realization Döl-bo-ba himself stated to be previously unknown in Tibet and spoke of it this way: To bow in homage to the gurus, buddhas and kalkīs by whose kindness the essential points which are difficult for even the exalted ones to realise are precisely realised, and to their great Stüpa. During this period Döl-bo-ba wrote and taught a great deal, while also working on the stüpa. His monumental Mountain Doctrine, Ocean of De-Jinitive Meaning: Final Unique Quintessential Instructions “was completed well before the final consecration of the Stūpa on October 30, 1333. His view of “other-emptiness” is based on profound understanding of three Indian expositions of tantras, the “three cycles of bodhisattva commentaries”

Mountain Doctrine

Part one Döl-bo-ba Šhay-rap-gyel-tsen, author of the Mountain Doctrine, Ocean of Definitive Meaning: Final Unique Quintessential Instructions, was one of the most influential figures of fourteenth-century Tibet, a dynamic period of doctrinal formulation. As Cyrus Stearns says in his excellent biography: Without question, the teachings and writing of Dol po pa, who was also known as “The Buddha from Dol po” (Dol po sangs rgyas), and “The Omniscient One from Dol po who Embodies the Buddhas of the Three Times” (Dus gsum sangs vgas kun mkhyen dol po pa), contain the most controversial and stunning ideas ever presented by a great Tibetan Buddhist master. The controversies which stemmed from his teachings are still very much alive today among Tibetan Buddhists, more than 600 years after Dol po pa’s death. His works were monumental and seminal in that they present a penetrating and controversial re-formulation of doctrines on emptiness and buddha-nature influential through to the present day. Döl-bo-ba Šhay-rap-gyel-tsen was born in the Döl-bo area of present day Nepal in 1292 in a family practicing tantric rites of the Nying-ma order. It is reported that after receiving tantric initiation at the age of five, he had a vision of Red Mañjushri, and subsequently his intelligence burgeoned. At twelve he was ordained and at seventeen fled, against his parents’ wishes, to study with Gyi-dön Jam-jang-drak-ba-gyel-tsen in Mustang, where in a month he learned the doctrinal vocabulary of the path-structure studies associated with the perfection of wisdom teachings, epistemology and logic and  phenomenology.” His new new teacher wa called to Ša-gya, then the greatest learning center in Tibet, and two years ater Döl-bo-ba joined him, where he continued studies on the three above mentioned topics, as well as Shãntideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds’-simultaneously mastering them in a year and and half.  From this master he also received teachings on the Kalachakara, Tantra nad related Sütras and commentaries that shaped his practice and outlook.  After receiving many other teachings, when he was twenty-one, his parents “who had now forgiven him for running away,””

Khantrul Jamyang Jinpa Gyamtso

Khantrul Jamyang Jinpa Gyamtso/Nagwang Tsundue was bron in 1981, sixth Rabjung, Chakmo Bird, on 15th Saga Dawa (name of the 4th Tibetan month, full moon of the Saga Constellation, ceremony on the 11th day of the 4th Tibetan month) in Golok Akyong.  Samten Dorjee and Pheza Kalo were my parents, we didn’t have sufficient amount of money to purchase necessary goods for life, life was hard as nomad without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas.  villagers have been remembering that there was some miracle signs like birds praying Mantras of (ཨོཾ་ཨ་མི་ངྷེ་ཝ་ཧྲི་) near by the black tent. He was interested to learn Buddhism since the childhood and to be irritated with the fact that being happened in the Samsara, his parent had been working on changes of his thought as they hoped that he would take care of the family, but it never happened.  He has given his devotion to the sovereign lord Pema Namgyal, the master of continuum of lives and pray to him since the young age, he was intelligent and smart.  On a dark night he escaped secretly out of family and reached to the Longcha Monastery on the back of horse with an other monk named Tashi Nyima, that time he was only thirteen. After death of his mother, he was cared by Lama Pema Namgyal personally and other monks in the Monastery.  He studied at Longcha Monastery and received empowerment and quintessential instructions from Master Nagwang Pema Namgyal, he also took all vows of a monk and practising on meditation sessions. Under the guidance of great Masters, he completed studies on the five major texts and other necessary education. He was invited by Qinghai Television for an interview and took prats of countless debates and conferences which are related to academic studies.  On 17th Rabjung, earth male, mouse year, 2nd January 2008, Master Nagwang Pema Namgyal had called his spiritual sons together and Khantrul Jamyang jinpa Gyamtso was  engaged to be the great Gyal-tshab (the foremost representative) and empowered him as the

A Work Telling the Life and Liberation Story of the Great Master Padmākara.

Part 19 The place where the ḍākinīs were first bound under oath was called Lampasdyā, where, in the cave, there is a hearth made by his own hand. The latter two bindings were done at a place called Alapasdyā, where there are about a thousand imprints left when the kīla-daggers struck the ḍākinīs. Activity kīla-daggers do not usually remain in the domain of ordinary beings. Yet, whereas all the others disappeared, one still remains, so that beings in the future would have faith. It is said the wisdom deity dissolved into the body of the Master, and thus a single material kīla-dagger was left behind. No substance, such as stone, wood, copper or iron, compares to it. It is as if, rather than having been made, it had spontaneously appeared, measuring about the length of three people. The story goes that at first there was a strong kīla-dagger made of wood. During practice, it increased vastly in size and could be changed to any size with the mind, could move and speak and so on, just like the actual deity. It became a whirling firebrand, too. When one of the main piśacī mantradhārinī made her body the size of Mount Meru and was just about to flee, the kīla-dagger also became the size of a mountain and struck her down. Later, it is said, the wisdom deity dissolved into the body of the Master, the brilliant light and blazing fire calmed, and this kīla-dagger was what remained. Conclusion I arranged this history of the Master as follows: There are a few accounts that are known in the Noble Land of India, such as the oral transmission the great accomplished master Śāntigupta, and there is an even more detailed and extensive account from the lineage of the master Devakara from Drāmiḍa. I heard these stories from direct disciples of both of these two masters. In addition, the history of his activities on behalf of the beings of Tibet appears in many similar, reliable, old documents that I have complete faith in. I have also

A Work Telling the Life and Liberation Story of the Great Master Padmākara.

Part 18 The Master also subdued the yakṣa, rākṣasas and evil nāga of that land. The protector deity of Drāmiḍa’s king was a violent and malicious preta called Varpaté. The Master knew that if he tamed the king, this spirit would be tamed at the same time. He thought to himself, “In order to spread the teachings of the Buddha, I must also tame these humans.” The Master thus settled in a forest near the king’s palace. Through the power of his meditative concentration, the Master repeatedly summoned the kings, queens to serve as consorts in the maṇḍala. When the king realized that his queens were missing, he disguised himself as an ordinary person, went after them, and watched them as they surrounded the Master. In the morning, the king and his army, bearing all sorts of weapons, came to destroy the Master. The Master merely threw some mustard seeds at them, whereupon the weapons of the king and his retinue burst into flame, blood flowed from their limbs, they became paralyzed, speechless, and thoroughly confused. They stayed like this for three days. Then, reaching the brink of death, they prayed and supplicated the Master. He cleansed them with water from his vase, and they were instantly restored to health. The king and his retinue prostrated at the Master’s feet and said they would do whatever the Master said, at which he commanded, “Establish the teachings of the Buddha!” The king invited learned teachers from Magadha—a teacher of Vinaya, another of Sūtra and yet another to teach the Abhidharma. He had three temples built, called Bidha, Ardhā and Sudhā, and the Master performed the consecration ceremonies. The Master then explained the three baskets of teachings and the methods of practice until they became firmly established. The Master taught the vehicle of the sūtra tradition, but not much else in that country. To the king and his retinue, he gave many Dharma instructions. To six fortunate students, he explained the six tantras, teaching the completion phase and yogic activity many times.

A Work Telling the Life and Liberation Story of the Great Master Padmākara.

Part 17  The Master Padmasambhava went there to tame those beings. He took residence in a cave on the island. There he entered meditative concentration, and through that power actually summoned the rulers of that land—the king’s queens, the sixty-four mantradhārinīs, emanations of the sixty-four mātṛkās. He tormented them with wrathful mantras and mudrās to make them faint, become paralyzed, and experience intense pain and sorrow. “Now, I will burn you in the hearth of a fire offering,” he threatened, at which they instantly became docile and agreed to do whatever the Master commanded. They made all the other chief mantradhārinīs gather, and the Master gave them Dharma teachings. This was the first binding under oath. Once, when the Master was staying in a town, he saw many mantradhārinīs leading away and eating some human beings of Jambudvīpa. Once again, he opened a great wrathful maṇḍala in a cave. All the ḍākinīs, powerless to resist, were summoned and scolded. When they were about to escape, he struck their limbs with a kīla-dagger. From that time forward they vowed never to harm the people of Jambudvīpa, and received the bodhisattva vow and generated bodhicitta. This was the second binding under oath. Another time, the Master arrived at an inn where many women were boiling water in pots. After a little while, some of the water turned into blood, some turned into fat, some turned into sperm, some turned into human flesh, some turned into clarified butter, some turned into molasses, some turned into cooked rice, and some turned into beer and other substances. On seeing this, the Master asked them what they were doing. Not recognising that it was in fact the Master, they said, “We have summoned the essences of the food and bodies of the people of Jambudvīpa.” “Did you not take an oath in front of the Master Padmākara?” he exclaimed, and to this they replied, “Our mistress took an oath, but we did not!” So, in the same cave as before, the Master summoned the leaders and