Jewels of the Middle Way

The Madhyamaka Legacy of Atisa and His Early Tibetan Followers

James B. Apple

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781614295013
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

Jewels of the Middle Way documents an important tradition of Madhyamaka and provides insight into both the late Indian Buddhist blend of Madhyamaka and tantra and the Kadampa school founded by the Indian Buddhist master Atisa. This book presents a detailed contextualization of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school in India and Tibet, along with translations of several texts in the Bka' gdams gsung 'bum ( Collected Works of the Kadampas ), recently recovered Tibetan manuscripts that are attributed to Atisa and Kadampa commentators. These translations cohere around Atisa's Madhyamaka view of the two realities and his understanding of the practice and the nature of the awakening mind.The book is organized in three parts based on the chronology of Atisa's teaching of Madhyamaka in India and Tibet: (1) Lineage Masters, the Mind of Awakening, and the Middle Way; (2) Articulating the Two Realities; and (3) How Madhyamikas Meditate. Each part focuses on a specific text, or set of texts, specifically related to Atisa's Middle Way. The authorship and date of composition for each work is discussed along with an outline of the work's textual sources followed by an analysis of the content.

PART 1
LINEAGE MASTERS, THE MIND OF AWAKENING, AND THE MIDDLE WAY

1. Atiśa’s Open Basket of Jewels: Special Instructions on the Middle Way

ATIŚA’S Open Basket of Jewels: Special Instructions on the Middle Way (Ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭamadhyamakopadeśa)¹⁸⁵ is one of the primary works among his collected writings and perhaps the most extensive of his extant writings composed in India. The text outlines a number of significant features regarding his theory and practice of Mahāyāna Buddhism in general, as well as his understanding of Madhyamaka in particular. The term ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭa refers to an open karaṇḍa, a “basket or covered box,” made of jewels (ratna) or containing jewels.¹⁸⁶ In this instance, the jeweled box or box of jewels is the text itself, containing over 120 citations from sūtras and tantras, as well as śāstras and hymns attributed to seminal Buddhist figures such as Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva. The citations of these sources indicate that Atiśa had access, possibly in a temple or monastic library or depository, to a great number of Indian Buddhist texts when he composed this work.

Date and Place of Authorship

According to the colophon of the canonical version of Open Basket of Jewels, the text was written in the great temple of Vikramaśīla, under the patronage of King Devapāla. The colophon explains that Atiśa composed the work at the requests of his Tibetan disciple and translation partner Tsultrim Gyalwa. The colophon also mentions that the translation was redacted by Atiśa, Tsultrim Gyalwa, and the layperson Tsöndrü Sengé. Therefore the text must have been composed before Atiśa left for Tibet circa 1040, as Tsöndrü Sengé passed away in Nepal on the journey to Tibet (Chattopadhyaya 1981, 302). This information also demonstrates the pedagogical relationship Atiśa had with his Tibetan students in India, in that Atiśa composed Open Basket of Jewels as an introduction for them to understand his Madhyamaka lineage, its source texts, and its primary practices.

Structure and Content

The text centers on the special instructions (man ngag or gdams ngag) on the Middle Way (dbu ma). As Kapstein (1996, 275) notes, gdams ngag, “instruction,” is understood in connection with meditational and yogic practice and “refers essentially to the immediate, heartfelt instructions and admonitions of master to disciple concerning directly liberative insight and practice.” In this instance, the special instructions provide guidance in developing insight derived from meditative cultivation (bhāvanā-mayī-prajñā), the third level of insight that comes after initial rote learning and study (śrūta-mayī-prajñā) and intellectual integration (cintāmayī-prajñā) of Buddhist teachings. Rather than placing emphasis on Madhyamaka reasoning to realize emptiness (śūnyatā), this type of instruction centers on cultivating the mind to rest in the nonconceptual experience of reality.

The Middle Way special instructions that Atiśa imparts are permeated with the values of the Vajrayāna or tantric phase of Buddhism under the socioeconomic influences of the South Asian Pāla dynasty (750–1150). During the Pāla dynasty, Buddhist formations were centered on the scholarly study and practice of Mahāyāna discourses (sūtra) and technical digests (śāstra), supported and cultivated in tandem with Vajrayāna consecrations, rituals, and blessings. The integration of Mahāyāna discourses with Vajrayāna literature is well illustrated in the text: Atiśa cites over forty-six Mahāyāna sūtras and ten tantras as authoritative for his vision of the Middle Way. As the annotations to the translation illustrate, Atiśa’s style is to abbreviate citations from sūtras and tantras. Comparison with the canonical versions of these texts often indicates that Atiśa modifies the meaning of verses to help illustrate the rhetorical points that he wishes to emphasize.

Based on Miyazaki’s outline (2007), the text may be divided into six sections: (1) preliminary instructions, (2) instructions on the mind of awakening, (3) the activity of buddhas and bodhisattvas, (4) a listing of previous important Indian Buddhist masters, (5) the teachings of Nāgārjuna and his buddhahood, and (6) a brief discussion regarding the practice of secret mantra.

The initial instructions provide a condensed set of guidelines for meditation on emptiness. These instructions include advice on cultivating an attitude of renunciation and the proper motivation to engage in meditation, which should be based on compassion for beings by remembering their kindness to oneself over the course of previous innumerable lifetimes. The instructions at this point state that

when the yogi internalizes this cultivation and cultivates the ultimate mind of awakening, then through cultivating the conventional mind of awakening one will stabilize both minds of awakening, [the two minds each] having the essence of great compassion and emptiness.

The idea is that with the fusion of the conventional mind of awakening to the ultimate mind of awakening—the luminous, unproduced reality of emptiness—one will then stand firm in a state of awareness that has the features conducive to attaining the awakening of buddhahood.

Atiśa then discusses cultivating the conventional mind of awakening in thirteen subsections. The subsections are not discussed in sequential order and include understanding the mind of awakening’s (1) cause of arising, (2) condition, (3) nature, (4) aspect, (5) training, (6) apprehension, (7) guarding, (12) increase, (13) benefits, (8) cause of dropping, (9) fault of relinquishing, (10) benefits of causing in others, and the (11) fault of interrupting the mind of awakening in others. Atiśa combines citations of sūtras, tantras, works of Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga’s Bodhisattvabhūmi, and Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra as proof texts to illustrate how the conventional mind of awakening is properly cultivated. This presentation differs slightly from, yet also complements, the presentation on the mind of awakening found in Atiśa’s Bodhimārgapradīpapañjikā composed later in western Tibet. In this regard, the importance that Atiśa places on the proper cultivation of the mind of awakening within his instruction on Madhyamaka and in his outline of the Mahāyāna path is indicated by the details of his discussion and the wide range of sources that he cites to justify his guidelines.

The third section of Open Basket of Jewels outlines the salvific activity of buddhas and bodhisattvas based on their altruistic compassion for sentient beings. Atiśa provides an interesting excursis on the buddha/bodhisattva Mañjuśrī on this topic, identifying him as a primordial buddha (ādibuddha) and connecting him to several different cycles of tantric teachings. Atiśa also mentions the activity of Avalokiteśvara, the activity of his predecessors, and autobiographical statements reflecting personal advice that he received in Somapurī and Bodhgayā to cultivate the mind of awakening based on love and compassion. He also summarizes the structure of the path to buddhahood based on...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Atiśa’s Middle Way in India and Tibet
• Part 1. Lineage Masters, the Mind of Awakening, and the Middle Way
• Part 2. Articulating the Two Realities
• Part 3. How Mādhyamikas Meditate
• Appendix of Translated Passages
• Table of Tibetan Transliteration
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• Copyright