Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

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treehuggingoctopus
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Sherab Rigdrol wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 11:03 pm
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:48 pm If by aggression one means behaviour that means harm, there was absolutely no aggression, not on my part in any case.

No, I do not talk like that to other teachers of mine. Malcolm is the only one who debates things online, and the only one who engages in, and often opens up, such debates as this one. And the terms of the debate here are not established by me -- I enter the fray which is already going on, and the way it is is to a great extent because of how Malcolm tends to engage in such debates. The terms are set by those who dominate the debate. i certainly do not. Let's face it: the DW is Malcolm's place. He is the king here.

But this is the DW and not Zangthal. When I suggested two years ago that a poster receive teachings from Malcolm, I was sent a PM in which I was told that Malcolm does not post here as a teacher -- that according to how he would like it to be, Zangthal is where he is the teacher, here he is just a senior experienced practitioner, a lotsawa and a loppon, but does not engage with us as a teacher. I have never entered, and would not enter, such a fray at Zangthal.

Anyway, I have defended Malcolm here dozens of times over the years, explicitly taking his side in some of the dirtiest knifefights, when he was being attacked. I have also repeatedly said that I deeply respect him as a teacher, loppon and translator, and consider him a friend. I have benefited greatly from his advice and knowledge over the years, and I have consistently spoken of it here and elsewhere. How could anyone accuse me of disrespect or actual aggression here is beyond me -- unless one conflates disagreement with disrespect, something which Malcolm himself would never do.

This is my last post in the thread. in the future I am not going to enter any debates with Malcolm -- not because I feel it is, or I have done here something that would be, improper, but because of how people react to it. I have no desire to sow discord in the sangha.
You have a history of playing both sides of the fence.
See, there is no fence here, as far as I am concerned. There is no Great Divide at DW that drives its history. The fact that I disagree with someone, that I argue with them, and that I point out that they occasionally cross the line in no way means that I "am playing both sides of the fence" because this is not a war, nor a spy thriller, nor a test in how utterly loyal a party member I am. I can love someone dearly and do the same, and indeed the closer I am to someone -- the more I trust them -- the more I will do so.

If this is how what is going on here is generally construed, then frankly I do not want to be a part of it. That is all I am going to say in this thread.
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Lingpupa
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Lingpupa »

krodha wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 10:08 pm
The vibe is overt, as much as you two are attempting to conceal it with “calm, reasonable disagreement.” But whatever you want to tell yourself.

You and treehuggingoctopus come off like you’re white knuckling it through the politest external display of an internal “frak you” you’re capable of conjuring.
You are fully entitled to your projection and opinion. I don't feel the need to respond further.
All best wishes

"The profundity of your devotion to your lama is not measured by your ability to turn a blind eye."
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by sherabpa »

Malcolm wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 4:51 am The nine examples have both a definitive understanding, compatible with prasanga, and an understanding that is an atmavada at worst, and false aspectarian yogacara at best.
To render the nine examples compatible with prasanga would require you to deny many passages in the Uttaratantrashastra itself, such as those concerning changelessness, the element not being empty, its being true permanence, bliss, self, and purity, and its being inseparable from qualities.

However it is not equivalent to an atman or the mind of false aspectarian yogacara, because these are refuted by the inferential analysis of madhyamaka, whereas tathagatagarbha cannot be subject to such analysis, not being an object of conceptual understanding, as the Uttaratantrashastra itself says many times. It is not that all the zhentong masters such as Situ Panchen and Karma Thinleypa failed to understand the existing refutations of atman and false aspectarian yogacara.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Passing By »

sherabpa wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 3:10 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 4:51 am The nine examples have both a definitive understanding, compatible with prasanga, and an understanding that is an atmavada at worst, and false aspectarian yogacara at best.
To render the nine examples compatible with prasanga would require you to deny many passages in the Uttaratantrashastra itself, such as those concerning changelessness, the element not being empty, its being true permanence, bliss, self, and purity, and its being inseparable from qualities.
Are they really incompatible? Prasanga and Uttaratantrashastra. I mean lhundrub being a quality of kadak and the basis being nonarising and deathless doesn't seem so far fetched really
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Malcolm »

sherabpa wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 3:10 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 4:51 am The nine examples have both a definitive understanding, compatible with prasanga, and an understanding that is an atmavada at worst, and false aspectarian yogacara at best.
To render the nine examples compatible with prasanga would require you to deny many passages in the Uttaratantrashastra itself, such as those concerning changelessness, the element not being empty, its being true permanence, bliss, self, and purity, and its being inseparable from qualities.
This is all resolved, simply put, through understanding tathātagarbha to be tathāta itself. It's right there in the name. Tathāta itself is the garbha of a tathāgata.
However it is not equivalent to an atman or the mind of false aspectarian yogacara, because these are refuted by the inferential analysis of madhyamaka, whereas tathagatagarbha cannot be subject to such analysis, not being an object of conceptual understanding, as the Uttaratantrashastra itself says many times.
If the first nine examples are taken literally, then yes, there is the problem of atmanavada.

As far as the qualities go, the qualities are clearly explained in the Uttaratantra as being a function of the accumulation of the two heaps. The chapter of qualities clearly outlines the 64 qualities that belong to the three kāyas. If you assert that omniscience of all aspects exist fully formed in sentient beings, you are confronted with the absurdity that sentient beings clearly are not omniscient and so on. There are many other contradictions with the assertion that qualities exist fully formed in the basis, which is dispelled by the fact that basis is not just self-perfected. In the Uttaratantra, these 64 qualities are resultant qualities, not qualities of the basis.

But of course we can name the cause after the result, since we do this all the time in Buddhadharma. Since the the nature of all sentient beings is nothing other than suchness, when that suchness is realized, being the nature of all phenomena, it is not surprising at all that many qualities of the three kāyas manifest. Since the nature of sentient beings is just suchness, for this reason, tathāgatagarbha doctrine and prasanga are not in contradiction when it is understood that the tathāta of tathātagarbha is just the same suchness that is taught in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. The two texts even use the same metaphor, space, to describe tathāta. Just as space is the source of all phenomena, likewise, tathāta is the source of all qualities of buddahood, but also, all faults of sentient beings. Just as space is not established substantially or as truly existent, likewise, tathāta itself is not established substantially or as truly existent. The Uttaratantra declares that tathātagarbha is free from all extremes, therefore, rightly understood, it is perfectly consistent with prasangika, and indeed, a prasangika perspective is the only correct approach to this teaching.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Malcolm »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 5:30 am
Malcolm wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 11:34 pm Care to quote me a book and page number?
Naturally. SMS1 Trainings, July 1994 to June 2001. Volume 1, pages 279-281 (the section of Ati Dzogchen view, the transcript of Namgyalgar SMS 1, April 1997 teachings).
Why don't you take a look at the passage ChNN is referencing? However, the passage is not exactly what ChNN represents it to be in Mipham's text.

In Speech of Delight, pg. 125-134, you will find that Mipham is equating several scholars view of freedom from extremes (spros bral): Longchenpa, Gorampa, Marpa, Milarepa, Sapan, Tsongkhapa, Rangjung Dorje, Dolbupa, and Taranatha in that order. I have already pointed out that Dolbupa and other gzhan stong pas agree equipoise can only be free from all proliferation. Since other-emptiness is a post-equipoise view, it is necessarily conceptual. Mipham also claims that the post-equipoise view of gzhan stong is analytical (133). This passage is also the sole passage where sugatagarbha is mentioned in the whole text.

Mipham then goes on to diplomatically discuss skillful means, and the necessity of teaching different sorts of teachings to different beings.

Moreover, in 1993, Conway, when discussing the Sakya master Mangtho, normally considered a gzhan stong pa, ChNN stated clearly that while there were similarities with gzhan stong in terms of the idea that the three kāyas were present in the basis, he distinguished Dzogchen from gzhan stong by point out that in Dzogchen the three kāyas are just potentials which require secondary conditions for manifestation, just as he does in the passage you mention here.

Finally, Mipham declares on page 84/85, my translation, "Because the intent of Śrī Candra—the profound view in which the biases of false conventions dissolve into the [dharma]dhātu because all these appearances are immediately pure where they are—is equivalent to the way original purity is confirmed in the texts of the Great Perfection, it is endorsed in our own lineage of vidyādharas..."

He earlier clarifies (pg. 75) that Candra's approach, is in his estimation, a cig car ba approach, one of equipoise in the union of two truths, (pg. 151), "There, through the way of the Consequence [prasanga] one gains certainty regarding the final Middle Way that accords with wakefulness [ye shes, gnosis] of equipoise."

The Yogacāra Madhyamaka, he states, is a gradualist presentation.

Thus, no one can claim that the final view of Nyingma school is not Candra's. We have the evidence of both Longchenpa and Mipham, as well as ChNN on this point.

So unlike your previous assertion that we shouldn't check the explanations of our teachers against the texts that they reference, in fact we actually do need to check their references.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by sherabpa »

Malcolm wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 3:16 pm This is all resolved, simply put, through understanding tathātagarbha to be tathāta itself. It's right there in the name. Tathāta itself is the garbha of a tathāgata.

If the first nine examples are taken literally, then yes, there is the problem of atmanavada.

As far as the qualities go, the qualities are clearly explained in the Uttaratantra as being a function of the accumulation of the two heaps. The chapter of qualities clearly outlines the 64 qualities that belong to the three kāyas. If you assert that omniscience of all aspects exist fully formed in sentient beings, you are confronted with the absurdity that sentient beings clearly are not omniscient and so on. There are many other contradictions with the assertion that qualities exist fully formed in the basis, which is dispelled by the fact that basis is not just self-perfected. In the Uttaratantra, these 64 qualities are resultant qualities, not qualities of the basis.

But of course we can name the cause after the result, since we do this all the time in Buddhadharma. Since the the nature of all sentient beings is nothing other than suchness, when that suchness is realized, being the nature of all phenomena, it is not surprising at all that many qualities of the three kāyas manifest. Since the nature of sentient beings is just suchness, for this reason, tathāgatagarbha doctrine and prasanga are not in contradiction when it is understood that the tathāta of tathātagarbha is just the same suchness that is taught in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. The two texts even use the same metaphor, space, to describe tathāta. Just as space is the source of all phenomena, likewise, tathāta is the source of all qualities of buddahood, but also, all faults of sentient beings. Just as space is not established substantially or as truly existent, likewise, tathāta itself is not established substantially or as truly existent. The Uttaratantra declares that tathātagarbha is free from all extremes, therefore, rightly understood, it is perfectly consistent with prasangika, and indeed, a prasangika perspective is the only correct approach to this teaching.
There can be no problem of atmanavada unless one says the tathātagarbha can be grasped by the conceptual mind, which it cannot.

Yes tathāta itself is the garbha of a tathāgata, and it is like space. But that is not the only metaphor used. It is also like a wish-fulfilling jewel, because the space of tathāta it is inseparable from the qualities. It is also like a vessel, a lamp, water and so forth. Yes the qualities are functions of the two accumulations, but in the sense of clearing away the obscuring factors, as the 9 examples show. In essence the Tathātagarbha is unchanging.

I do understand the difficulty of considering primordial wisdom to exist in the basis. But the Uttaratantrasastra does explicitly speak in such terms. I do also see that it sometimes differentiates causes and results. But it also most emphatically speaks of unchangingness throughout the three phases, and the inseparability of qualities from the basis, etc. The most profound and wonderful point of this text is precisely that the qualities are inseparable from space itself.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by sherabpa »

Passing By wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 7:04 am Are they really incompatible? Prasanga and Uttaratantrashastra. I mean lhundrub being a quality of kadak and the basis being nonarising and deathless doesn't seem so far fetched really
Yes I believe I misspoke there. The 9 examples are naturally compatible with prasangika. I meant there is a merely apparent incompatibility if one considers the non-emptiness of buddha nature to be subject to conceptual madhyamaka analysis.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Malcolm »

sherabpa wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 2:10 am
Yes tathāta itself is the garbha of a , and it is like space. But that is not the only metaphor used. It is also like a wish-fulfilling jewel, because the space of tathāta it is inseparable from the qualities. It is also like a vessel, a lamp, water and so forth. Yes the qualities are functions of the two accumulations, but in the sense of clearing away the obscuring factors, as the 9 examples show. In essence the Tathātagarbha is unchanging.
Yet, tathāta is also empty, it is not something truly established. If it were, it would be an inherent existent.
I do understand the difficulty of considering primordial wisdom to exist in the basis.

Pristine consciousness is the basis, but it also is not a truly established entity. The basis itself is baseless and has no foundation. Whatever qualities or faults that arise from it are equally the same. It is this point that renders Dzogchen more profound than the Uttaratantra.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Malcolm »

sherabpa wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 2:16 am
Passing By wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 7:04 am Are they really incompatible? Prasanga and Uttaratantrashastra. I mean lhundrub being a quality of kadak and the basis being nonarising and deathless doesn't seem so far fetched really
Yes I believe I misspoke there. The 9 examples are naturally compatible with prasangika. I meant there is a merely apparent incompatibility if one considers the non-emptiness of buddha nature to be subject to conceptual madhyamaka analysis.
If by the “non-emptiness of buddha nature” you are asserting buddha nature is something that is truly established, your view is no better than the view of nonBuddhists. If by the “non-emptiness of buddha nature” you simply mean that emptiness of suchness is also not truly established, than this fault is avoided.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by natusake »

sherabpa wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 2:10 am
There can be no problem of atmanavada unless one says the tathātagarbha can be grasped by the conceptual mind, which it cannot.
Brahman is also stated to not be grasped by the conceptual mind. Do atmavadins not have the fault of atmavada?
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by Malcolm »

natusake wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 5:18 pm
sherabpa wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 2:10 am
There can be no problem of atmanavada unless one says the tathātagarbha can be grasped by the conceptual mind, which it cannot.
Brahman is also stated to not be grasped by the conceptual mind. Do atmavadins not have the fault of atmavada?
This is just a form of apophatic mysticism. The argument that something is valid because it is beyond the conceptual mind is incoherent.

Asserting that the nature of the mind (tathāta) is not empty, while the mind itself is empty, is also incoherent.
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by natusake »

Yup
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Re: Clarification on Nyingma view of emptiness

Post by stong gzugs »

Könchok Thrinley wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 4:33 pm
Malcolm wrote:The fact that the gzhan stong pa incorrectly apply the three natures in a manner in utter inconsistent with how they are explained in the foundational documents of the yogacara school, while simultaneously insisting that everyone else has it wrong is another.
Any quote on which you could prove that? Otherwise we will have to go and crosscheck and I am a slow reader so it might take a while.
There's no proof, just arguments on either side. Tsongkhapa's polemics predictably argue against the gzhanstong view and they are anything but conclusive. Tāranātha explained how the gzhanstong interpretation of the three turnings is logically consistent with yogacara and the ratnagotravibhāga. You can check out Mathes' article for a highly readable summary and assessment of Tāranātha's arguments--and some of the contours of this debate can also be seen in the back-and-forth from the broader thread from my quoted post below.

Mathes, K.-D. (2001). Tāranātha’s presentation of trisvabhāva in the gŹan stoṅ sñiṅ po. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 23(2), 195–223. [PDF]
stong gzugs wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 7:47 am Related to the above, I'd just call readers to read for themselves Mathes' 2001 article and I think most would come to the same conclusion I did: that Taranatha's reading is logically consistent and one valid reading of many.
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