Theos-Talk Archives (June 2007 Message tt00088)

Re  the Absolute of the Jonangpas


   I wonder how these arguments on the 
nature of the Absolute can have any real 
basis, as it is something "beyond human 
conception" as Blavatsky says:


"...an omnipresent, eternal, boundless, 
and immutable principle on which all 
speculation is impossible, since it 
transcends the power of human conception...."
     

   Also it is an "insider's joke," 
because you would have to understand 
all this abstruse Tibetan philosophy.  


     I wonder how an Absolute state 
could be described - because WHO is 
doing the describing?  By it's definition, 
the individuality would disappear, and 
only remain latent in Relativity by 
the skandhas (which in Reality cease 
to exist and never have an existence.)


    On an "exoteric" level I think 
perhaps the Buddhist doctrine of Anatman 
or "no self" is nefarious - because 
Relatively speaking we DO have a Self - 
the reincarnating Ego - this center 
within ourselves, and the only real 
and ultimate refuge for the individuality.  
The personal self doesn't exist, but 
the Individuality does exist.  For any 
psychological health, finding this center 
is what is important, and saying it 
doesn't exist can cause serious problems.  
So we are IMMORTAL IN RELATIVITY, but 
in an an Absolute and esoteric sense, 
ANATMAN is true, as we do not exist at 
all - as non-existant as a thousand-year-
old cow fart in Bangladesh, or the memory
of a bug you saw on the sidewalk when
you were five years old.  This ultimate
non-existence does much good in 
destroying the petty ego, and people 
who go after "enlightenment" as another 
power-tool in their ego tool-chest.  
Makes sense to me!


         - jake j.

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>5. The Absolute [parinispannasvabhâva] of the Jonangpas 
    Posted by: "danielhcaldwell" danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com 
danielhcaldwell
    Date: Sat Jun 9, 2007 10:02 am ((PDT))

>The Absolute [parinispannasvabhâva] 
of the Jonangpas 

>David Reigle in his article on the Jonangpas writes:

----------------------------------------------------------
>Like Theosophy which teaches as its first fundamental proposition "an
omnipresent, eternal, boundless, and immutable principle on which all
speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human
conception,"...[the Jonangpa school] teaches a principle which is
permanent, stable, quiescent, and eternal, which is devoid of
anything but itself, or "empty of other" (gzhan stong), and which
therefore transcends even the most subtle conceptualization....
----------------------------------------------------------

>Later in the same article, Reigle writes more about:

----------------------------------------------------------
>...[the] Jonangpa teaching of a permanent, stable, quiescent,
and eternal dhåtu or tathågata-garbha or dharma-kåya which is
"empty of other" (gzhan stong) and therefore ultimately beyond
the range and reach of thought....
----------------------------------------------------------

>Now compare the above with some choice quotes from the scholar
TOM J.F.TILLEMANS in his article on "Tibetan Philosophy" in "The
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy":

---------------------------------------------------------------
>...much of Tibetan thought was indeed strongly influenced by
an indigenous version of the Mâdhyamika which attempted to integrate
Nâgârjuna's thought with Yogâcâra and with the principal ideas
in Indian texts such as the Ratnagotravibhâga (Differentiation of the
Lineage of the [Three] Jewels), an early fifth-century text which
notoriously speaks of a permanent (nitya), stable (dhruva) and
eternal (úâúvata) Buddha-nature present in sentient beings. This
Tibetan synthesis was initially put forward by the Jo-nang-pa school,
founded by Dol bu pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (Dolbuba Shayrap gyeltsen,
1292?1361)....

>In brief, the fundamental . . . ideas go like this for a Jo-nang-pa:
the Absolute, parinispannasvabhâva, whose existence enables us to
avoid the nihilistic view that everything is just a complete
illusion, is only void of the imagined and dependent natures: it is
void of what is other than it, but is not void of itself. The
imagined and dependent natures, on the other hand, are nonexistent
and are void of themselves....

>...the Absolute is an existent, truly established gnosis (ye
shes)....this gnosis admits of no distinction between subject
(grâhaka) and object (grâhya) and is suchness (tathatâ) and the
bhûtako;i (`limit of the real'); it is identifiable with the
Buddha-nature spoken of in the Ratnagotravibhâga....

>....Not surprisingly, the Jo-nang-pas were often criticized,
especially by the dGe-lugs-pas, but also by Sa-skya-pas such as Go
ram pa, as reifying the Absolute and thus transforming Buddhism into a
substantialist philosophy....

>...The Jo-nang-pas thus supposedly went badly astray from Indian
Mâdhyamika by adopting positive descriptions which hypostasized a
permanent Absolute, although, in all fairness, it has to be said that
this criticism largely depends on which Indian texts one emphasizes
and what literature one takes as authoritative. It can be
intelligently argued in defence of the Jo-nang-pas that there were
Indian Mâdhyamika texts, like the hymns attributed to Nâgârjuna,
which did exhibit a positive, cataphatic approach not far from that
of the Ratnagotravibhâga, and that Indian Mâdhyamika did not consist
exclusively in the negative apophatic dialectic or the insistence upon
dependent origination (pratîtyasamutpâda) that one finds in
Nâgârjuna's Mûlamadhyamakakârikâ.
----------------------------------------------------------

>Daniel
>http://hpb.cc

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