Mahamudra

There were problems with the previous articles I posted, so I've re-uploaded only the original version of this article, written as an exercise at the University of Chicago Divinity School in February 2008. Please do not cite this without contacting me, as some aspects of this work are outdated.

In Indian and Tibetan forms of Buddhism “pointing-out instructions” (ngo sprod) generally signifies an introduction to the nature of mind by a spiritual teacher to a qualified disciple. Pointing-out instructions are associated with tantric Buddhist lineages of meditation and yogic practice in a number of Indo-Tibetan traditions. In Nyingma lineages pointing-out instructions are connected to varied Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) traditions where one confronts the natural state (gnas lugs ngo sprod). Kagyü and other Tibetan Buddhist traditions of the new sects (gsar ma) associate pointing-out instructions with the practice of mahāmudrā. It is often claimed that the influence of Gampopa Sönam Rinchen’s (1079-1153) mahāmudrā teachings in Tibet was such that, as one erudite scholar has even suggested, “all Kagyü reflections on mahāmudrā is really but a series of footnotes to Gampopa.” Following this mode of thought, most modern scholarly sources have ignored the possibility of Kadampa influence on Gampopa and the varied Kagyü meditation manuals that came after him. This article clearly demonstrates that Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982-1054) and his early Kadampa followers significantly influenced Gampopa and subsequent Kagyü traditions in their structuring of mahāmudrā meditation manuals.  The systematized and structured “not-specifically-tantric-practice” type of pointing-out instructions of mahāmudrā are intimately related to Atiśa’s Stages of the Path, its commentaries, and the teachings found in the Pointing-Out Instructions in Sets of Five presented and translated in this article for the first time in English.

Phag mo gru pa received instructions from sGam po pa according to which the instructions on Mahamudra are either conferred directly on the disciple or after the disciple had cultivated the sign of warmth through such practices as the yoga of gTum mo. 'Jig rten gsum mgon inherited these instructions and taught that the realization of Mahamudra is produced through guru devotion and, based on that, the purpose of the yogas is to produce and enhance qualities for the sake of others.

Mahāmudrā (translated as Great Seal) is an important and
polysemous concept in the history of Indian and Tibetan forms of
Buddhism. The term and its associated practices gain great
significance in esoteric forms of Indian Buddhism from the ninth
century onward. In Tibet, the theory and practice of Mahāmudrā,
although known to most forms of Tibetan Buddhism, came to be
predominantly practiced among bKa’ brgyud (hereafter, Kagyu)
affiliated lineages. Modern and traditional understanding of the
history and practice of Mahāmudrā is based on Kagyu practice
manuals, histories, and ritual liturgical works. In these materials,
Mahāmudrā is primarily associated with Indian figures such as
Saraha, Tilopa (10th c.), and Nāropa (d. 1042), and Tibetan
Buddhist figures such as Mar pa lo tså ba chos kyi blo gros (1012–
97 CE), Milarepa (mi la ras pa, 1040–1123 CE), and Gampopa
(sgam po pa bsod nams rin chen, 1079–1153 CE). This paper
examines the Mahāmudrā teachings of Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna
(982-1054 CE) and his early bKa’ gdams pa (hereafter, Kadampa)
followers based on previously unstudied canonical documents and
manuscripts recently published in Tibet.

This research investigates the Mahāmudrā interpretation of the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorjé (1507-1554), particularly regarding his text Recognizing the Blessings of Mahāmudrā (Phyag rgya chen po’i byin rlabs kyi ngos ’dzin). Drawing upon contemporary research, historical developments, and textual evidence, this work argues that the Eighth Karmapa’s Mahāmudrā thought can be understood as reaction, re-appropriation, and resolution. Though Mikyö Dorjé reacted to Sakya and Gelug critiques of Kagyü Mahāmudrā, and accepted that one could re-appropriate Mahāmudrā by incorporating aspects of sūtra and tantra onto the path of Mahāmudrā, he ultimately sought to adhere to the subitist tendencies of early Kagyü masters by resolving all conventional tensions of the ground, path, and fruition via a holistically non-dual union (Skt. Yuganaddha; Tib. zung ’jug). This demonstrates that both doctrinal eclecticism and upholding the transcendence of Mahāmudrā were pillars of Mikyö Dorjé’s thought, and that his theory of union provided rhetorical and philosophical consistency and justification for these views.

MA thesis (cand.mag. speciale) in Tibetology. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Collected Works of the Tibetan Buddhist master Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen (1079-1153). Chapter 2 presents his contemplative doctrine called Mahamudra. Chapter 3 discusses the critique of Sgam po pa's Mahamudra teachings voiced in the thirteenth century by Sa skya Pandita Kun dga' rgyal mtshan. Chapter 4 reflects on the doctrinal background for Sgam po pa's doctrinal innovations. A thoroughly revised version of the thesis will be published shortly (2014/2015), rendering the thesis obsolete.

The Chöd tradition practiced at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery (KNSL) in Boudhanath, Nepal places a much greater emphasis on awareness (rig pa) and devotion than is recognized in academic studies on Chöd. Moreover, in connection to this emphasis, the spiritual master’s oral instructions play an indispensable role in the practice. This thesis will demonstrate that although the KNSL’s Chöd texts introduce an abundance of information, it is the oral instructions pertaining to Dzokchen and Essence Mahāmudrā which set forth greater details, fine-tune and condense the philosophical content, introduce the different levels of practice, clarify the approach, and highlight key points. Thus, the oral pith instructions determine how Chöd is practiced—bringing awareness and devotion to the forefront—with renunciation and compassion as two key additional methods. It further argues that this demonstrates the living oral tradition as a critical source of information and analysis when studying Chöd texts or similar tantric ritual texts. The oral instructions are the pedagogical instrument which provides a wealth of differentiation and individualization. Furthermore, KNSL’s oral Chöd instructions consolidate the components of intellectualism, passionate emotions, and non-conceptual wakefulness.

This study examines how Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507‒1554), the Eighth Karma pa of the Karma Bka' brgyud lineage, articulates and defends a key distinction between consciousness (rnam shes) and wisdom (ye shes). The first paper focuses on the author's clarification of the distinction both as an accurate account of the nature and structure of human consciousness and as an indispensable principle of Buddhist soteriology. Arguing that human beings have two " concurrent but nonconvergent " modes of awareness, conditioned and unconditioned, Mi bskyod rdo rje urges the practitioner to discern amidst the adventitious flux of dichotomic thoughts an innate nondual mode of awareness that is regarded as the ground and goal of the Buddhist path. That the recognition of their difference is the key to realizing their underlying unity is central to the Karma pa's response to the perennial Buddhist problem of reconciling two divergent Buddhist models of reality: [1] a differentiation model based on robust distinctions between conventional and ultimate truths or realities (saṃvṛtisatya versus paramārthasatya) and their associated modes of cognition and [2] an identification (yuganaddha) model of the two realities (satyadvaya : bden gnyis) which emphasizes their underlying unity. This article concludes with an annotated translation and critical edition of a short text by the Karma pa on the subject entitled " Two minds in one person? A Reply to the Queries of Bla ma Khams pa " (bla ma khams pa'i dris lan mi gcig sems gnyis). This article constitutes the first of a two-part study of Mi bskyod rdo rje's views on the rnam shes/ ye shes distinction. Part Two, which deals with certain polemical issues in Mi bksyod rdo rje's justification of the distinction, will appear in the next issue of this periodical.

The idea that meditation leads to knowledge of deep features of reality that normally elude human cognition has been central to a wide range of Buddhist systems of doctrine and practice. One interesting Tibetan variation on this theme is the ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud distinction between Mahāmudrā as the mode of abiding (gnas lugs phyag chen) and Mahāmudrā in the mode of error (’khrul lugs phyag chen). The distinction is introduced by Rgyal ba Yang dgon pa (1213-1258), illustrious founder of the Yang dgon subsect of the Upper ’Brug pa (stod ’brug) tradition, in his celebrated Trilogy of Mountain Teachings (Ri chos skor gsum). It is there presented as a subdivision of the first of the three basic categories of ground (gzhi), path (lam) and goal (’bras bu) Mahāmudrā in order to clarify how the ground of human reality (i.e., Mahāmudrā) is both an abiding condition and the condition of possibility of error and obscuration. Later, in the more polemically charged intellectual climate of central Tibet in the 16th century, Padma dkar po (1527-1592) revives Yang dgon pa’s distinction and employs it as a powerful paradigm for articulating and defending a view of Mahāmudrā emphasizing the unity (zung ’jug) or inseparability (dbyer med) of the two truths - the conventional and ultimate - and of therefore reconciling the profane and the sacred.

This is the translation of the  paracanonical manuscript tradition of Tilopa’s Ganggā ma Mahāmudrā: The Oral Transmission of Cakrasaṃvara and the Ḍākinī. The edition has already been published  in the Festschrift for Jens-Uwe Hartmann and is available here at academia.edu. The paracanonical traditions differs significantly in structure (and sometimes also in content) from the canonical editions. It is an ancient tradition whose most important feature seems to be that it preserves a structure of the text where the disciple is introduced directly into the nature of the mind.

Narratology in Buddhist Studies: Dialogues about Meditation in a Tibetan Hagiography briefly discusses literary theories and narratology in Buddhist studies, before zeroing in on a specific phenomenon: dialogues about meditation in a hagiography about Mikyö Dorje, a Karmapa hierarch of 16th-century Tibet. Examining the function of the dialogues in the main story of this incarnate lama narrative, Rheingans illustrates the possible benefits and limitations of applying narratology – and also Western notions of history – to Tibetan hagiographies. Apart from the historical context, the paper translates and studies the meditation instructions of the dialogues that are about conceptualisation and Buddhahood, the Great Seal (Skt. mahāmudrā).

This article offers a synoptic overview of the Fourth ’Brug chen Padma dkar po’s (1527‒92) efforts to clarify the sense and significance of the Dwags po Bka’ brgyud doctrine of mental nonengagement (amanasikāra) and to defend it as a valid system of exegesis (bshad lugs) and practice (sgrub lugs). It starts with Padma dkar po’s critical rejoinder to Sa skya Paṇḍita’s (1182–1251) contention that Dwags po Bka’ brgyud traditions advocated the type of blank-minded “mental nonengagement” (amanasikāra) that had been promoted by Heshang at the Samyé debate prior to his ignominious defeat at the hands of Kamalaśīla. In defending Bka’ brgyud amanasikāra teachings in light of Maitrīpa’s Amanasikāra Doctrinal Cycle (yid la mi byed pa’i chos skor), the Fourth ’Brug chen sets out to show how these are fully in accord with authoritative Indian Madhyamaka and tantric amanasikāra teachings, to the extent that all agree that thoughts are left behind in the context of ascertaining the ultimate, but are diametrically opposed to the type of perpetual blank-mindedness amanasikāra attributed to Heshang. A key to Padma dkar po’s defence is his insistence upon the compatibility between Kamalaśīla’s conceptualist interpretation of amanasikāra as a “well-founded mental engagement” (yoniśo manasikāra) having emptiness as its object and Maitrīpa’s strongly nondual interpretation of amanasikāra as “mental engagement having emptiness (a = emptiness + manasikāra) as its nature”. Both agree that the goal of Buddhist meditation is a nonconceptual ascertainment of the ultimate and the path consists in dispelling reifications which conceal it. The key difference, then, is whether this goal of nonconceptual wisdom is “arrived at” via conceptual representations and a lengthy process of analytical investigation (Kamalaśīla) or “disclosed” in its originary condition through direct perceptions in which conceptual representations are left behind (Maitrīpa, Rāmapāla, Sahajavajra, Padma dkar po). Though it may be argued that Padma dkar po’s compatibilism makes a significant concession to a representationalist strain of Cittamātra epistemology that had been rejected by Maitrīpa’s Apratiṣṭhāna (nonfoundationalist) Madhyamaka tradition, and in this way elides important differences between their respective epistemologies, Higgins argues for seeing it as a type of soteriological contextualism which aims to accommodate both perspectives by coordinating their respective soteriological roles and spheres of application. Such is the conciliatory thrust of his middle way: to combine the virtues of each approach while avoiding the vices of pursuing either as an end in itself.

Donald Winnicott's radical existential psychoanalytic understanding of transitional awareness and transitional relatedness is an amazing and little used doorway for today's psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. In today's cognitive clinical culture we have become cognitions tampering with cognitions. Life as cognition. Existential Ontology Winnicott's creative understanding of our capacity for transitional awareness and transitional relatedness intertwines both our personal psychology and our innermost experience of our own existential ontology. Transitional knowingness intertwines both our mind and our primordial awareness field. Our field of awareness knows the field of Being since awareness is the field of Being. Transitional awareness intertwines both our mind and our psyche. Donald Winnicott's phenomenological understanding of the self radicalizes our sense of self from being a representational picture or cognitive affective schema or synthesis of disparate psychological part's to a fluid sense of self as a direct experiential felt sense of ongoing continuity of Being. Our knowingness though the medium of awareness, opens for us the direct knowing of the experience of Being. The experience of Being is for us our sense of natural spirituality. Our liminal transitional awareness field opens us into the immediate ongoing intimate experience of Being. This experience of Being is of Being within our very own self and of Being within our very own relational life-world. Ordinary Personhood We, as a most ordinary person, can experience the unfolding movement of the experiencing of Being within our own self as our self, and simultaneously, the unfolding experiencing of our own being as the being-ness of Being which is the Being of the world. As we experience the Being .

This paper examines Yu mo Mi bskyod rdo rje's (b. 1027) explanation of the definitive meaning of mahāmudrā, or "great seal," according to the early Tibetan Kālacakra tantric tradition.The first part of this paper gives a preliminary overview of the text, The Lamp Illuminating Mahāmudrā (Phyag rgya chen
po gsal sgron). The second part devotes special attention to a particular quotation attributed to the Paramādibuddha Kālacakra Tantra, the most definitive "canonical" source for Yu mo ba. This quote demonstrates that Yu mo ba relies heavily in his text on Sanskrit Buddhist works to refute what he sees as wrong views
pertaining to the notion of mahāmudrā and highlights Yu mo ba's particular interpretation through his reading of primary sources on "the accomplishment of mahāmudrā taught according to the Vajrayāna."

In this article, I explore the predominant features of Saraha’s Mahāmudrā poetry, based mainly on a song called "The Treasury of Songs of Instructions on the Great Seal," or do ha mdzod ces bya ba phyag rgya chen po'i man ngag or dohākoŚa nāma mahāmudropadeśa.

Tilopa’s Ganggā ma Mahāmudrā: The Oral Transmission of Cakrasaṃvara and the Ḍākinī
This paracanonical manuscript tradition differs significantly in structure (and sometimes also in content) from the canonical editions that were published in 1991 by Tiso and Torricelli. Together with the manuscript traditions of the Drikung Kagyüpa’s Phyag chen rgya gzhung and the 5th Sharmapa’s edition of the text, these paracanonical manuscripts form an important ancient tradition whose most important feature seems to be that it preserves a structure of the text where the disciple is introduced directly into the nature of the mind (whereas the editors of the canon seem to have massively interfered with the text in order to put this teaching through the hoops of gradualism). I have uploaded my edition of six manuscripts and three block prints (published in the Festschrift for Jens-Uwe Hartmann) at academia.edu.

In Mahamudra a person enters Transcendental knowing beyond mind, and beyond phenomena. In Dzogchen one experiences the field of Being as, and through the field of phenomenological experience. The field of phenomenological experience of our own Being, the field of phenomenological experience of the Being of others, and the field of the phenomenological experience of the Being of the world are included and experienced. The field of Being is multidimensional and infinite in its horizons.

From Mi­lindapañha:
"Can there be any rebirth where there is no transmigration?"
"Yes there can, just as a man can light one oil-lamp from another but nothing moves from one lamp to the other; or as a pupil can learn a verse by heart from a teacher but the verse does not transmigrate from teacher to pupil."

In the past few decades, mindfulness meditation and other techniques of Buddhist origin have been rapidly gaining in recognition as means of facilitating psychophysical health and well-being. However, this growing enthusiasm has recently been checked by a host of criticism that questions the ways mindfulness has been (mis)construed and (mis)appropriated in Western culture. Critics have been especially vocal about the dangers of " mystifying mindfulness " : extracting it from its traditional framework and transforming it into a watered-down, decontextualized self-help method. Although sympathetic to its main thrust, we believe such criticism must be appropriately qualified. To begin with, what critics often neglect is the fact that Buddhism is not a homogenous tradition, but exhibits great diversity. For the most part, critics base their claims on Abhidamma Buddhism and tend to ignore the contribution of other (particularly Northern and East Asian) Buddhist traditions. Drawing on recent work on Mahāmudrā in Tibetan Buddhism and early Chan in Chinese Buddhism, the paper argues that contemporary conceptions of mindfulness have telling historical precedents, which have important implications for current debates. Specifically, we suggest that the inclusion of Northern and East Asian Buddhist traditions provides us with a more nuanced conception of

The similarities and differences between Mahāmudrā and Dzogch´en will be analysed by taking into account various aspects. Furthermore, in the analysis and comparison, the focus will be on Mahāmudrā of the Kagyu and Gelug tradition and of course, Dzogch´en. To place the investigation in context, first, a summary of the historical lineages will be given. After that, the essay continuous discussing the common elements of practice of both methods after which more details of each method will be developed by analysing their understanding of the Ground, Path and
Fruit. Particular interest will have those stages in which the concepts of Mahāmudrā and Dzogch´en become manifest, which are the last phases of the paths. With these elements, it will be possible to draw the conclusions about similarities and differences of Mahāmudrā and Dzogch´en and its relation to the Tantric meditation stages.

The following translation of the life of Maitrīpā is an excerpt from the Bla ma rgyud pa'i rim pa (LGR), a thirteenth-century Tibetan hagiography on the Dohā lineage of Saraha. The LGR is the first section of a manuscript collection of explanatory texts on Saraha's Three Cycles of Dohā (Do hā skor gsum) entitled Ū phyogs gzigs par źu' | dpal sa ra ha'i mdo ha'i grel [= 'grel ] pa lags.

Among the masters of 15th century Tibet, the first Karma ’phrin las pa
Phyogs las rnam rgyal (1456–1539) was an arguably non-sectarian scholar-meditator active within the Sa skya and Karma bKa’ brgyud traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Although the genre of songs itself has received quite some attention, the mGur of Karma ’phrin las pa have not been researched extensively. This paper—by way of three exemplary songs and some overall analysis—aims to examine this textual corpus as a source for the study of history, literature and Buddhist doctrine. After an introduction to Karma ’phrin las pa’s mGur volume, I shall offer an annotated translation of three selected songs along with a brief discussion of their style and contents.

This article adds to the body of scholarship examining intertextuality within Buddhist literature by identifying significant textual parallels between the Acintyamahāmudrā (Eng. The Inconceivable Great Seal) ascribed to Tilopa and the doctrinal discourse of the master work of the eleventh century defender of the Great Perfection, Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo, the Theg chen tshul'jug (Eng. Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle). In presenting these preliminary findings and using them as a touchstone for preliminary reflections on larger issues of textual modularity, communal authorship, received tradition, and the social and historical contexts of eleventh century Tibet, we do not claim to exhaust the issues or ensuing questions. Rather we aim to contribute to our understanding by exploring hitherto unstudied intertextual associations structuring one of the most important works in the Nyingma or "Old School"––and its core doctrinal theme of mere appearance (snang tsam).

This chapter situates the question of ethics and mindfulness in the context of a global crisis—a crisis that is at once ecological, social, and personal—and suggests that these dimensions of the global crisis contain a common and underlying crisis of being, a nihilistic despair that is symptomatic of an inability to come to terms with groundlessness and relativity. Informed by the methods of insight (vipashyanā) within the awareness traditions of Tibetan Buddhist Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen, the emerging trend of “compassion” within secular mindfulness discourse is critiqued and applied to the question of nihilism and the global crisis. Through normalizing and cultivating a familiarity with groundlessness and relativity, mindfulness practice can anchor itself to deeper intentions that can not only critique the way that mindfulness is currently being taught and practiced, but can also liberate the personal and collective resources necessary for global sustainability. By honoring the integration of groundlessness and compassion presented in the traditional “Mind Training” teachings, secular compassion trainings can facilitate a novel and emergent culture of groundlessness within secular society. In this way secular compassion training can become an authentic and powerful agent for personal and social change, forming the basis of globally sustainable ethical action, i.e., a groundless ethics of wisdom and compassion.

The author has been a "seeker" for over 50 years. During most of this time I have had a connection with the Gurdjieff Foundation of San Francisco. I have also explored other traditions, largely by extensive reading, and also by short experiential encounters. Some of these traditions are called "esoteric." "Esoteric" usually is taken to mean that there is something secret, too sacred to be openly revealed. The word itself-"esoteric"-comes from the Greek and means "behind the curtain". This refers to the layout of ancient temples and cult sites, which were often divided into an outer court, to which all have access, and an inner court only accessible to authorized initiates of a certain level. I have been able to look behind some of the curtains. In all these traditions, much is hidden, sometimes intentionally but more often owing to the simple fact that practitioners' views crystallize around an established set of ideas and words. Almost always the signature words of a tradition are understood only superficially and accepted to be understood simply because they are familiar, and are surrounded by familiar clusters of associations. This is true even for the "great books" of traditions, and the talks of their highest representatives.