Theos-Talk Archives (July 2000 Message tt00056)

Daniel,
I have read your interesting comment several times, but I really can't
figure out what to your good opinion is the contradiction between Tsongkhapa
and the SD.
You say:
>lived just after Dolpopa, 1292-1361. This critique is
> of much importance to Theosophists, since Dolpopa
> apparently teaches the first fundamental proposition
> of The Secret Doctrine, and Tsong-kha-pa apparently
> refutes it;

-- but is that true? Can you give a quote?
>From the quotes you gave I see no contradiction between Tsongkhapa and the
SD.
In opposite, you say taht Tsongkhapa rejects the Jonangpa school which
teaches:

> The Jonangpa teaching of a permanent, stable,
> quiescent, and eternal dhatu
> or tathagata-garbha or dharma-kaya which is "empty of
> other" (gzhan stong)

is in bold contrast to the first fundamental principle HPB gives in her SD:

> (a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable
> PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible,
> since it transcends the power of human conception and

Omnipresent means periodical in the objective world (SD I:2), but that is
not the "permanent and stable" doctrine of Jonangpa and I think Tsongkhapa
was quite correct in rejecting that doctrine.

Further you write:
> This critique is of much importance to Theosophists, since Dolpopa
> apparently teaches the first fundamental proposition
> of The Secret Doctrine, and Tsong-kha-pa apparently
> refutes it; yet Tsong-kha-pa is regarded by

Insofar - as I assume from your comments - Dolpopa teaches the same as
Jonangpa, then Dolpopa teaches actually quite the opposite of what is the
first fundamental proposition of the SD. "Permanent, stable quiescent and
eternal" reminds me rather of the God of the Christian church as of the SD.

Frank





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