The Buddha From Dolpo

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• List of Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One—The Life and Teachings of the Omniscient Dolpopa
  • Chapter One—The Life of the Buddha from Dolpo
  • Childhood and Early Education
  • Studies at the Great Monastery of Sakya
  • The Move to Jonang
  • Raising Mt. Meru and Revealing the Zhentong View
  • The Initial Reception of the Zhentong Teachings
  • The New Jonang Translation of the Kalacakra* Tantra and the Vimalaprabha*
  • Years of Retreat and Teaching
  • Invitation to China by the Yüan Emperor Toghon Temür
  • Changes in the Jonang Leadership and the Beginning of the Journey to Lhasa
  • Teachings in Central Tibet and the Return to Tsang
  • The Aborted Meeting with Budön Rinchen Drup
  • The Last Months at Jonang
• Chapter Two—A Historical Survey of the Zhentong Tradition in Tibet
  • The Buddha From Dolpo:
  • The Buddha From Dolpo:
  • The Buddha From Dolpo:

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The Zhentong Tradition in Tibet before Dolpopa

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Dolpopa and the Zhentong View

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The Zhentong Tradition after Dolpopa

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Chapter Three—The Doctrine of the Buddha from Dolpo

Existence and nirvana* are not identical, but like a shadow and the sun. —Bhagavan* Avalokitesvara* 1

The title alone of Dolpopa's The Great Calculation of the Doctrine Which Has the Significance of a Fourth Council (Bka' bsdu bzhi pa'i don bstan rtsis chen po ) would have been enough to rankle those who were opposed to his interpretations of Buddhist Doctrine. In Tibet it was universally accepted that there had been three great councils (bka' bsdu ) in India for the purpose of gathering and accurately preserving the teachings of the Buddha after his final nirvana* .2 Dolpopa's audacious claim that his text served as a fourth such council would obviously have provoked incredulous reactions among many of his contemporaries. That he anticipated certain objections is clear from the following comments at the end of his autocommentary to The Fourth Council :

Having realized that the Doctrine of the Buddha remains in a superior, a middling, and an inferior [form, it is realized that] the superior is the Krtayuga* Dharma, which is the witness and authority. The middling is the Tretayuga Dharma and the inferior is the Dvaparayuga* Dharma. Those two are not witnesses. This realization by the great experts who stand guard over the Doctrine is very important.

To establish the path of perfect view, meditation, and conduct after cleansing the flawless Doctrine of flaws which have

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been mixed in, and contamination which has been imposed by the flawed intellects of ordinary persons, is also the purpose of a council. There were three councils before, and this is the fourth. It is also a great calculation of the Doctrine.3 It is called impartial and unbiased because all the faithful respect, pure vision, expressions of disagreement, appeals,. love, compassion, and so forth, remain impartial and unbiased, without falling into any prejudice.

Objection: While it is known that many arhats [destroyers of the enemy] gathered for the previous councils, here the gathering is just to destroy [your] enemies.

[Reply:] In the sublime Krtayuga* teachings there are many thousands of profound quotations by the great arhat, the Blessed One, the Buddha, which very clearly present the meaning of this. Since those [quotations] are the same as the [actual presence of] the great arhat, this has been compiled according to his tradition.

Future compilers please also do likewise, and if there is disagreement in regard to the interpretation of the quotations, please use the autocommentaries of the Buddha himself as witnesses.4

In addition to clarifying the meaning of the title of his text, these remarks also touch upon the first major point raised by Dolpopa in The Fourth Council itself. In this work, and many of his earlier compositions as well, Dolpopa speaks of a fourfold division of the Buddhist teachings according to four eons (yuga ). Basing himself upon the teachings of the Vimalaprabha * , Dolpopa mentions two sets of four eons (yuga ), the first of which is the greater, referring to the quality of the eons which make up a cosmic age (kalpa ), while the lesser set refers to the quality of the different periods of the Buddhist teachings.5 In the autocommentary he states his criteria for this classification, and makes it obvious that he is speaking of a doxographical scheme in regard to the eons of the Doctrine. This has recently been noted by M. Kapstein, who has said that Dolpopa was "allocating philosophical doctrines to 'aeons' according to purely dogomatic criteria."6 According to Dolpopa, the teachings of the perfect Krtayuga are those which apply directly to the truth just as it is, whereas the teachings which belong to the Tretayuga,

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Dvaparayuga* , and Kaliyuga are progressively contaminated and filled with flaws, due to the nature of the individuals who have composed them. Thus the Krtayuga teachings are the only ones which should be regarded as valid testimonies to the enlightened intentions of the Buddha.7

This classification of the historical degeneration of the Buddhist teachings is indeed found in full form in the Vimalaprabha * , primarily in the section of commentary upon verses 22 and 23 of the Lokadhatupatala* of the Kalacakra * tantra .8 Budön's annotations to these passages make it clear that Dolpopa was not here making any innovative interpretations of the original treatise.9 What is less clear is what the Vimalaprabha * and Dolpopa both consider to be the teachings of the Krtayuga. As indicated by quotations found throughout his writings, Dolpopa certainly considered the Krtayuga Dharma to include many, if not all of the highest tantras, as well as The Trilogy of Bodhisattva Commentaries, The Ten Sutras * on the Buddha-nature, The Ten Sutras * of Definitive Meaning ,10 and the works of Maitreya, Nagarjuna* , Vasubandhu, Asanga, Naropa* , and Saraha. AS Kapstein has mentioned, Dolpopa seems to have considered Ãrya Vimuktisena, Haribhadra, Yasomitra* , and other late Indian masters to represent the Tretayuga.11

It will become obvious in the translation of The Fourth Council in part 2 that Dolpopa identified his own tradition with the teachings of those scriptures and writers which he viewed as truly portraying the Krtayuga tradition. This was also a motivating factor behind his wish to redefine what had until his time been accepted as the orthodox lines of scriptural interpretation in Tibet.

Emptiness of Self-Nature and Emptiness of Other

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A Redefinition of Cittamatra* and Madhyamaka

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Two Approaches to Enlightenment

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Part Two—Texts in Translation

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Figure 2.1
Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen.
Detail of a fifteenth-century painting of the Kalacakra* mandala* .
Henss Collection, Zurich. (Photo by Michael Henss)

Introduction to the Translation of A General Commentary on the Doctrine

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The Supplication Entitled A General Commentary on the Doctrine

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Introduction to the Translation of The Fourth Council

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The Great Calculation of the Doctrine Which Has the Significance of a Fourth Council

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Bibliography

European Language Sources

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Tibetan and Sanskrit Sources

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Index

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