As I read it, the Tibetan Book of the Dead demonstrates how every being’s battle against self never truly ends – even after death. Just as in life, it is our attachment to our self that keeps us tightly bound to samsara’s round, in death our clinging to self is the very force that thrusts us back into samsara. In fact, we may even cling more tightly to self in death than we do in life, as “terrifying projections” haunt us as we experience the bardo states. Interestingly, contra Western conceptions of death as “the end,” when thought and emotion disappear, feelings such as desire and yearning still trouble us after we die in the Tibetan conception of death. Continue reading
Questions about Khenpo Jikphun
Khenpo Jikphun
The central argument of David Germano’s semi-biography of the Nyingma teacher and Terton Khenpo Jikphun is that Khenpo Jikphun is attempting to revitalize and reform Tibetan Buddhism through a very physical reconstitution of religious and cultural Tibet, accomplished through re/discovery of treasures (Ter) that have been physically and/or mystically concealed since the time of Padmasambhava. He also promotes strict adherence to monastic traditions and practices as a way of combating what he views as corruption and decadence that has ingrained itself within the Tibetan people as a result of the anti-religious, Han chauvinistic cultural invasion of the PRC, particularly the Cultural Revolution. In doing so, he reconstitutes the body of Tibet “to manipulate [Tibet’s] Buddhist past in its conflict with modernity” (55). In this blog post, I’d like to break this down and ask a few questions about each parts of the argument that I feel Germano leaves unexplored.
Germano points out the ways in which Khenpo Jikphun mimics Nyingma predecessors’ response to and resistance against the translated scriptures of the Sarmas by drawing on older (and therefore, more legitimate) texts hidden as treasures by Padmasambhava and his disciples. In doing so, they (and Khenpo Jikphun, in mimicking them) are able to both resist external modernizing forces and offer an indigenous response that reforms and revitalizes their school. Yet the treasures they draw on ultimately originated with an external modernizing force (Buddhism), which raises the question: at what point does an externally-introduced tradition become indigenous?
This also raises questions about the larger role of tradition as a rhetorical tool of religious (and political or social, although these are not the focus of this class) reformers. Khenpo Jikphun uses historical traditions and values in the form of treasures both because of their legitimacy and rhetorical weight, but also because they are better in some way, presumably. It would be helpful to understand the precise intersection of these uses, or look at religious reformers who draw on history and tradition in a comparative context.
Another aspect of Germano’s argument that I feel creates more questions than it answers is the role of modernity in conflict with Tibet’s Buddhist past as Khenpo Jikphun wields it. Germano identifies two primary modernities in conflict with the “profoundly Tibetan sense of identity within a uniquely Tibetan landscape:” the atheistic Han modernity of Beijing and the pure (or less pure?) Buddhist diasporic modernity of northern India. He spills a lot of ink on the boring (perhaps only for me; at some point, the horror of CCP oppression of peoples and practices on the Han periphery achieves a kind of dull monotony) challenge presented by Chinese modernity, but he only briefly mentions the alternative modernity offered by exile in India:
Khenpo has helped to reverse the centrifugal flow of Tibetan identity into contemporary Chinese urban culture, refugee centers in South Asia, depression, nostalgia, or even the far-off alien dream of the West, and instead revitalize a profoundly Tibetan sense of identity within a uniquely Tibetan landscape. (57-58)
It would be nice to see some discussion of the last few destinations of the “centrifugal flow of Tibetan identity” instead of the flow into Chinese modernity that has been chronicled many times by many other scholars.
Rehabilitating Geshe Tsakpuwa
In the final chapter of The Life of Milarepa, we’re presented with the character of Geshe Tsakpuwa. Geshe Tsakpuwa is not a nice guy and far from a good Buddhist. He’s arrogant, jealous and status-obsessed. He’s more concerned with self-aggrandizement than enlightenment. And of course, there’s that bit where he assassinates the Jetsun (Tsangnyön Heruka 177-182). Continue reading
On Memorization
Memorization is largely regarded as a pointless exercise in contemporary American education. “Never memorize what you can look up in a book,” regarded as a truism ever since Albert Einstein reportedly said it, has only gained prominence in the digital age, when everyone in the United States carries around all of the knowledge of humanity in their pocket. The last time I remember being required to memorize a text for school – with the exception of my involvement in a handful of theatrical performances that required memorizing lines – was in fourth grade, when I had to memorize Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus,” written to memorialize the Statue of Liberty. More than ten years later, this poem comes off my tongue as easily as my address does (perhaps more easily – I’ve moved house several times in the intervening years, and don’t remember any of my former addresses, but I still remember that poem).
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Perhaps, then, George Dreyfus is correct in his assertion of the utility of rote memorization. In fact, my own experience with rote memorization suggests that Dreyfus’ argument that the most effective way to memorize a text (the way Tibetan Buddhist monks do) is to “concentrate entirely on the text’s sonic pattern, ignoring other associations as much as possible” (Dreyfus 2003, 86). Lines from plays, I typically memorized after doing a complete read-through of the script, placing my lines in context. Each line is learned as a response to the cue – the line before it. Lazarus’ “New Colossus,” however, I learned without any kind of context. As a fourth grader, I had no idea who the “brazen giant of Greek fame” was or what an “air-bridged harbor” looked like. And what on earth was “storied pomp?” To ten-year-old me, these words were simple sounds that, repeated over and over, managed to imprint themselves in my mind. I remember the poem; I don’t remember a single line of the plays.
However, I think we still need to turn a critical eye on rote memorization as a social practice. Dreyfus sees the primary benefits of memorization as enforcing discipline and enabling speedy and precise recall of texts aimed “at the long-lasting and exact reproduction of the words in the context of a scholarly or ritual performance” (Dreyfus 2003, 94). Memorization certainly does these things, but it also does some other things. Overemphasis of rote memorization without engagement with and between texts has the potential to stifle development of critical thinking and analysis. It also prizes dogma and orthodoxy over free thought. Considering that these texts are learned in the context of highly structured relationships of power, institutionalized violence and routinized domination (Dreyfus 2003, 57-59; 85), this is an important point to remember. Who benefits most from the orthodoxy of the student if not the teacher?
Rote memorization could also potentially hinder the spiritual development of practitioners; this would certainly explain the conflict between Milarepa and the Geshe we read about in The Life of Milarepa. In an incredibly brief aside, Dreyfus almost seems to recognize this: “It is also significant that some of the memorized texts have spiritual relevance. But by far the most important role of memorization, especially of the root texts, is to provide the organizational structure of the whole curriculum” (Dreyfus 2003, 92, emphasis added). The Western academic equivalent of this would be a professor of political science instructing her students to memorize Hobbes’ Leviathan “just so you have the organizational structure” for a class on democratic theory. Put this way, the absurdity of memorization for the sake of memorization is obvious.
Finally, as an aside, here’s a video of some young monks reciting the prayer to Manjushri, boddhisattva of wisdom, which Dreyfus notes is how every day starts at the monastery (85).
The usefulness of film
Until now, our engagement with Tibetan Buddhism in this class has been primarily conducted through primary sources, reading canonical texts such as Words of My Perfect Teacher and The Life of Milarepa that Tibetan Buddhists would themselves read. While primary source texts are useful tools for learning about any cultural practice or historical period, they’re particularly useful for gaining an insight into the emic perspective. While examining a religion from the emic perspective has certain ethical advantages, it also is useful from a perspective that values gathering accurate empirical data: going “straight to the source” largely eliminates observation effects. Continue reading
Buddhism, feminism, and Yeshe Tsogyel
We’ve touched on this briefly before in class, but Buddhism is a very universalist religion. As Alan Sponberg puts it in our readings for today, “The earliest Buddhists clearly held that one’s sex, like one’s caste or class (varna), presents no barrier to attaining the Buddhist goal of liberation from suffering” (8). Given the universalism fundamental to the most basic teachings of the Buddha, what Sponberg calls “soteriological inclusiveness,” it’s rather shocking to see that women are seen as inferior to men and incapable of attaining enlightenment in other Buddhist texts, both from the early years of Buddhism (the texts Sponberg examines) as well as later on (the story of Milarepa and Rechungma). Not only is Buddhism “soteriologically inclusive,” but it also rejects the idea that social distinctions such as caste are based in biology (Sponberg 10-11); instead, they’re a simple product of birth. “Neither ‘men’ nor ‘women’ in fact exist, at least not as intrinsically existing entities, nor consequently as objects of sexual clinging” (Sponberg 23). Words of My Perfect Teacher makes it quite clear that people are reborn as all genders at one point or other; how can gender or sex have any meaning in this context? I am not sure I am convinced that these problems are redeemable when they are so obviously internally contradictory. And, as Sponberg points out, even when Buddhism approaches issues from an androgynous viewpoint, it’s often an androgyny created by and for men, that fails to take into account the perspective of women (Sponberg 28).
Milarepa, too, seems to be guilty of the belief that women are inherently weaker than men and thus less able to practice Dharma. “You could not follow my way of living, and it is doubtful whether you would be able to endure want of food and clothing,” he tells Rechungma and her friends (267).
However, I believe that in this statement there is the seed of feminism, a seed that grows in the hagiography of Yeshe Tsogyel. While we see the same ideology about women as inferior to men (“Inadequate women like me…” on p. 18), we are also shown how women have inherent value: through their Dharmic relationships with guru and disciple, they are able to teach men and help them along their path to enlightenment (Gross 24-25). Simultaneously, the increased suffering they must endure in life (compared to men) because of their birth as women who are “inferior” to men ironically makes them more capable of practicing the Dharma than many men (Gross 20). A further way the story of Yeshe Tsogyel promotes a positive and equivalent view of gender is its view of relationships (both Dharmic and sexual) should be non-possessive (Gross 24). By not objectifying women as property defined by the man who “owns” them, this text makes a strong statement countering the misogyny of earlier texts. Finally, this text promotes a positive image of gender as a fluid, socially-constructed concept by “revers[ing] the more usual motif of women tempting men … portray[ing] the women as having strong sexual desires themselves” (Gross 25).
Question: Don’t people sing in Tibetan Buddhist scriptures out of spiritual enlightenment (isn’t it the enlightenment that inspires them to sing)? How come Milarepa didn’t know right away that Rechungma and her friends were already Dharma practitioners when they started singing?
Question: Is there some kind of duality to Milarepa and Rechungpa “begging alms and helping sentient beings?” (259) (And in these two activities being stated right next to each other?) In begging, sentient beings help the two Repas by sustaining them; by meditating, teaching, practicing, etc. they reciprocate. Is there another way of understanding this? It’s also interesting to me how concrete begging alms is compared to the vagueness of “helping sentient beings.”
Question: Why should the Buddha acknowledge Pajapati’s claims on the basis that “he owes a great debt” to her for raising him when he was a child? We’ve seen that Buddhists tend to reject strong personal relationships because of the attachment they create (see Milarepa’s relationship with his sister). Why does Ananda use this argument when talking with the Buddha?
Question: What’s up with the description of Tsogyel’s “multiple layers” (on p. 14)? She has a Dharmakaya manifestation, a Sambhogakaya manifestation, and a Nirmanakaya manifestation…
Milarepa and the indecisive lama
As I was reading this section, I kept wondering, “When is this chapter going to end? Why is it so long?” At 26 pages (in a ~200 page book), this chapter is quite lengthy, and I think this serves a purpose. How can we understand the length of this section?
I don’t think this question can be answered without first understanding the role of the lama and the purpose of “purifying negativities and obscurations through misery and despair.”
In chapter 5, the lama Marpa asks Milarepa to do a series of tasks – cast black magic on his enemies, build a series of towers – upon completion of which Marpa will grant him knowledge of the dharma and the oral instructions. Each time, Milarepa expends a Herculean effort, and each time the lama changes his mind, claiming that the dharma is worth much more than the small task that Milarepa has completed. Milarepa is forced to build a tower, tear it down, then rebuild it again in another place only to tear it down again. Through all of this, the lama Marpa continues to abuse Milarepa, insulting him, refusing to provide him with food or care for him when he is sick and ignoring his offerings.
When the lama finally accepts Milarepa and offers to give him the oral instructions, Milarepa says, “It was because I had done terrible actions in this first part of my life that I experienced such suffering in order to request the dharma.” The actions he was forced to carry out and the abuse he had to endure were a sort of penance, then. In this light, the length of this chapter serves as a reminder that the more terrible one’s actions have been, the more suffering one will be forced to endure and the harder it will be to reach nirvana.
I think there’s a little more to the tasks Milarepa is forced to carry out, however. In particular, the cycle of construction and deconstruction of the towers seems like a primer in the concept of impermanence. Even a strong tower, constructed to be lasting, for the purpose of protecting one’s self and one’s property and controlling a geographic region, is impermanent. The will (with regard to the towers) of the lama Marpa – who is a renowned and wise spiritual leader, a person we would trust to be firm in his decisions once he had made them – is also impermanent, even when he’s sworn that he’s given it a lot of thought or made a promise in front of a witness.
In this light, the length of chapter five is meant to stress the importance of understanding the impermanence of all phenomena.
Regardless of what the primary meaning of this chapter is, it is clearly supposed to be taken very seriously and to provoke strong feelings in readers. When Milarepa’s disciples hear him narrate this part of his story, “not a single person among all those listening to the discourse could keep from bursting into tears. Some, overcome with feelings of world-weariness and renunciation, nearly fainted.” (79)
Let’s compare this to their response to Milarepa’s second ordinary deed of suffering: “At this point, those listening to the discourse felt saddened and world-weary. In this state of mind, they wept and then, for a moment, all were silent.” (26)
Despite how terrible the sufferings Milarepa endured in chapter two are, something about his tribulations in chapter five are worse. My personal feeling is that chapter five is worse because Milarepa is so much closer to receiving the dharma but just can’t get quite there. The nearness of salvation (and Milarepa’s strong feeling throughout that he won’t ever achieve it, despite his proximity) makes Milarepa’s suffering feel all the more painful.
I’d be curious to hear what others thought on this, though.
Some interesting pictures:
The house that Milarepa built (the 4th tower Marpa asked him to construct)
Milarepa – why is he depicted holding his right hand up to his ear in most images/sculptures?
Faith and patience
Patrul Rinpoche is really a master of his craft. In The Words of My Perfect Teacher, he’s managed to produce a text that is very instructive with a high level of depth, without presenting the foundations of his beliefs in a way that is comprehensible and engaging to initiates. Simultaneously, he doesn’t sacrifice any lyrical breadth, frequently drawing on poetic imagery that imparts real beauty to the text.
The section on the importance and power of faith is really quite incredible. Proper faith in the Three Jewels, Patrul Rinpoche tells us, works miracles, bringing the blessings of the Buddha to even a simple tooth from the skull of a long-dead dog. This is amazing and wonderful, but true faith in the Three Jewels does more than just move mountains – it even erases terrible sins and turns them into good deeds. The power of faith turns the transgressions of Jowo Ben (eating the offerings to the Jowo Rinpoche and leaving his shoes in front of the altar) into positive actions that bring him closer to his goal.
Faith is essential not just for its ability to work miracles. “It is upon faith alone that actual realization of the absolute truth, the natural state, depends”*. This makes sense to me. Patrick Rothfuss wrote that “nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth”**. As we’ve already seen through our in-class discussions of the self and the universe and numerous other topics, there are a lot of unfamiliar truths that must be accepted and believed in in order to achieve nirvana. These truths are difficult to accept, and I think that only a faith that could turn sin into good deeds could be strong enough to convince a person of them.
I found it useful to conceptualize the three different levels of motivation for taking refuge in the following way:
The Refuge of Lesser Beings – A desire to eliminate our suffering in the short term
The Refuge of Middling Beings – A desire to eliminate our suffering permanently
The Refuge of Great Beings – A desire to end all suffering, wherever it exists
You might wonder why your enemies and obstacle-makers are given precedence over your parents in the refuge practice … The reason is that we who have undertaken the Great Vehicle must have the love and compassion of bodhicitta equally for the whole infinity of beings. More particularly, the only way to accumulate an immense amount of merit and not waste all that we have already accumulated is to make patience our main practice. As it is said: “How could we practice patience if there were no one who made us angry?” … It is the adversity your enemies cause you that provides you with a reason for practising patience. They separate you, whether you like it or not, from your wealth and possessions–the bonds that prevent you from ever getting free from samsara and therefore the very source of all suffering.***
I think this is the most loaded/fraught passage we’ve read so far. The concepts of “turning the other cheek” and “loving thy enemy” is, I think, familiar to many Americans,**** but this goes beyond that. True compassion, Patrul Rinpoche tells us, is not simply accepting the evil your neighbor commits against your, nor is it even loving him despite him having committed it. Rather, we should be grateful for the action itself, for without the action, we could not learn patience, which must be the “main practice” in order to accumulate merit. This is very difficult to accept (for myself, at least).
On a tangent, this brings to mind the way some Christian apologists have sought to reconcile the problem of evil: An omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity would allow for the existence of evil so that individuals have an opportunity to grow in their faith and come to a greater appreciation and love for the deity.
* p. 175
** The Wise Man’s Fear
***p. 180-1
**** See The Bible, Matthew 5:38-44
Thoughts on the first several chapters of WOMPT
Despite its name (“The difficulty of finding the freedoms and advantages”), I think chapter one of The Words of My Perfect Teacher has very little to do with difficulty. Rather, it’s a message of hope to believers and potential believers. While the chapter does take great pains to explain just how difficult and unlikely it is to be born as a human being in a kulpa during which the Buddha exists and has made the Dharma available to the world (and to your part of the world), this really isn’t that scary. Yes, not being able to enjoy the freedoms and advantages would be terrible, if only because it would mean they would have to endure one or more samsaric cycles before having a shot at nirvana. But everyone who is reading this text already enjoys all the freedoms and advantages. Essentially, this chapter tells the reader: “Congratulations! You’ve already won the samsaric lottery!”
This serves two purposes. First, it draws the believer (or potential believer) in with a promise of rewards just outside of their reach. Second, it puts them in a state of mind where they’re more likely to be willing to tough it through the difficult parts to come (impermanence, actions, etc. – all the parts of the faith that require hard work rather than simple luck).
The structure and writing style of The Words of My Perfect Teacher make it very approachable, easy to read and simple to learn from. Patrul Rinpoche even starts out by spending several pages explaining how to read his book and what the best ways to memorize religious information are. He defines terms clearly and is careful not to go to long without including a parable to keep the reader engaged. At the same time, these parables help illustrate difficult concepts and fix them in the reader’s mind.
In many ways, The Words of My Perfect Teacher goes about the process of explaining the tenets of Buddhism in a much more academic manner than I would expect of a religious text. In fact, the author’s style and methodology remind me of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. While Hobbes is writing about government, he starts out talking about very fundamental philosophical concepts like “words” and “ideas,” and is careful to define terms very clearly as he goes along and break concepts down to their constituent parts, in a way that is really quite scientific. Patrul Rinpoche seems to be doing the same thing in Words of My Perfect Teacher. He also draws heavily on other works, citing scholars and religious figures who came before him to lend credence and weight to his arguments.
Jottings from the Mountain Pass 山口雜記 