Adorning Maitreya's Intent: Arriving at the View of Nonduality

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Adorning Maitreya’s Intent

Arriving at the View of Nonduality

Rongtön Sheja Künrig

TRANSLATED BY

Christian Bernert and the Chödung Karmo Translation Group

FOREWORDS BY

H.H. Sakya Trizin and Khenpo Ngawang Jorden

SNOW LION

BOULDER

2017

Snow Lion

An imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc.

4720 Walnut Street

Boulder, Colorado 80301

www.shambhala.com

© 2017 by Christian Bernert

Cover art: Maitreya. From Situ’s set of Eight Great Bodhisattvas, 19th century C.E. Gift of Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. © Rubin Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Rong-ston Shes-bya-kun-rig, 1367–1449, author. | Bernert, Christian, translator.

Title: Adorning Maitreya’s intent: Arriving at the View of Nonduality / Rongtön Sheja Künrig; translated by Christian Bernert.

Other titles: Dbus dang mtha’ rnam par ’byed pa’i rnam bshad mi pham dgongs rgyan. English

Description: Boulder: Snow Lion, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Includes translation from Tibetan.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016011616 | ISBN 9781611803662 (paperback: alk. paper) | eISBN 9780834840393

Subjects: LCSH: Maitreyanātha Madhyāntavibhaṅga. | Yogācāra (Buddhism)—Early works to 1800. | BISAC: RELIGION / Buddhism / Tibetan. | RELIGION / Buddhism / Sacred Writings.

Classification: LCC BQ2965 .R6813 2017 | DDC 294.3/85—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016011616

CONTENTS

Foreword by H.H. Sakya Trizin

Foreword by Khenpo Ngawang Jorden

Acknowledgments

Translator’s Introduction

The Buddhist Path

The Role of Buddhist Philosophy

The Three Turnings of the Dharma Wheel

The Yogācāra Tradition

Scriptural Sources

Fundamental Concepts

Yogācāra in Tibet

Maitreya’s Madhyāntavibhāga

The Text

Authorship

Overview of the Madhyāntavibhāga

Rongtön’s Commentary

A Short Glimpse at the Life of Rongtön Sheja Künrig

Rongtön’s Commentary on the Madhyāntavibhāga

On This Translation

The Root Text

Translation

1.   Opening Verses of Worship and Explanation of the Narrative

2.   Explanation of the Title

3.   Explanation of the Treatise

3.1.   Presentation of the main body of the treatise

3.2.   Extensive explanation of the branches

3.2.1.   Explanation of the first chapter: Characteristics

3.2.2.   Explanation of the second chapter: The veils

3.2.3.   Explanation of the third chapter: Reality

3.2.4.   Explanation of the fourth chapter: Cultivation of the antidotes

3.2.5.   Explanation of the fifth chapter: The unsurpassed vehicle

4.   Concluding Verses and Verses of Aspiration

Appendix 1: Illuminating the Essence

Appendix 2: Detailed Outline of the Commentary

Notes

Glossary

Tibetan Names and Places with Transliteration and Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Chödung Karmo Translation Group

E-mail Sign-Up

FOREWORD

I am very pleased that Rongtön Sheja Künrig’s unsurpassable commentary on Maitreya’s Madhyāntavibhāga has been translated into English and thus made available to a great number of Dharma students worldwide.

Founder of Nalendra Monastery in Tibet and one of the foremost expo-nents of the Yogācāra school of thought, Rongtön Sheja Künrig is known as one of the Six Ornaments of Tibet. A formidable scholar and a mystic, he is regarded as an emanation of Maitreya as well as a reincarnation of some of the greatest Indian panditas of the past.

In this masterful work, Rongtön Sheja Künrig elucidates with remark-able clarity the core teaching contained in the Madhyāntavibhāga, describing in detail the process of liberation from a state of total affliction to the realization of the inseparability of clarity and emptiness.

Christian Bernert’s translation, Adorning Maitreya’s Intent: Arriving at the View of Nonduality, aptly conveys the essence of the great Sakya master’s treatise, while making it accessible to those readers who lack advanced philosophical training. It is bound to greatly deepen the understanding of all who undertake its study and it will surely be a source of great benefit to all.

The Sakya Trizin

October 5, 2016

FOREWORD

Awakened wisdom is known to be both vast and profound, allowing an enlightened being to teach others according to their dispositions. Count-less masters have studied, contemplated, and meditated on the Buddha’s words and have attained freedom from delusion as a result of their efforts. Many have commented on his words, guiding later generations to the same realizations. Based on their realization, on the perspective they adopted to teach the Dharma, and on the receptivity of their audience, the teachings developed in various ways, giving rise to the diverse traditions of Buddhism we know today.

We are extremely pleased to publish the translation of an important commentary on the Madhyāntavibhāga, a key treatise for the understanding of the Yogācāra tradition, one of the main systems of Buddhist thought and practice in India. Composed by the great Sakya scholar Rongtön Sheja Künrig (1367–1449), this commentary elucidates crucial concepts of the tradition, like a key unlocking the door of an immeasurable treasury.

By the merit generated with this work, may all beings realize that which lies beyond duality.

With my best wishes,

Khenpo Ngawang Jorden

Director of the International Buddhist Academy (IBA)

Kathmandu, Nepal

March 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Of the many individuals who contributed to the production of this book, we would like to extend our thanks in particular to Khenpo Jamyang Kunga, a direct disciple of the late Khenchen Appey Rinpoche, who taught this text to the translator over a one-month period in Kathmandu in the autumn of 2012. We also thank Ven. Ngawang Tenzin from the International Buddhist Academy, Kathmandu, who took the time to read through the entire text along with the manuscript of the translation. Thanks are due also to the Venerable French monk Damien Jampa for reviewing the work, to Vivian Paganuzzi for editing and proofreading, and to Markus Viehbeck and Rory Lindsay for their suggestions for the introduction.

We would also like to thank Nikko Odiseos and the entire Shambhala team for taking on this project and assisting us throughout the last stages of publication.

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the Khenchen Appey Foundation for funding this project.

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

THE BUDDHIST PATH

Buddhism is often referred to as the Middle Way, a path free of extremes. As a seeker, Siddhartha Gautama recognized the futility of a worldly life indulging in sense pleasures, and also the inefficacy of extreme forms of spiritual practice, and decided to renounce both. As the Buddha, the Awakened One, he realized that all mistaken views are contained within the extremes of permanence and annihilation, and taught a view free of speculative asser-tions about reality.

The path taught by the Buddha is based on a profound understanding of reality, and by following it one is led to realize the way things really are, free from mental projection and personal interpretation, without adding to or denying any aspect of the actual state of things. It is this insight that will free the individual from the delusion that is at the very root of all suffering.

Not understanding the real nature of experience, beings are entangled in all sorts of conflicting views and become emotionally unbalanced, generating aversion to certain experiences and attachment to others. This steers the mind away from the peace that is its ultimate nature. The Buddhist path is like a tool to unmask the distorted views we hold and the unwholesome conduct that ensues from those views. Fundamentally a wisdom (prajñā; shes rab)–oriented tradition, its foundation consists of establishing ethically sound discipline (śīla; tshul khrims) and cultivating wholesome forms of concentration (samādhi; ting nge ’dzin).

According to Buddhist tradition, wisdom is developed by first studying the teachings, then analyzing them, and finally cultivating in meditation the profound understanding gained through study and analysis. Scholars and practitioners of the past have composed a great many treatises commenting on the words of the Buddha and his disciples, providing us with many ways to analyze and deeply understand the nature of reality.

THE ROLE OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY

In the scriptures, Buddha Shakyamuni is often depicted as a very practical person, sometimes actively discouraging his followers from engaging in speculative arguments. In the Cūḷa-Mālunkyovada Sutta, for instance, in the parable of the poisoned arrow, the Buddha tells a disciple that metaphysical speculation can be a dangerous waste of time by likening it to a soldier wounded by a poisoned arrow who refuses to be treated until he knows everything about the arrow and the soldier who shot it.¹ Instead, we are encouraged to do something about the suffering we experience and its causes by following the path he laid out.

Why, then, one might reasonably ask, has the tradition produced this gigantic collection of writings of a philosophical nature? Of course, that depends on what we mean by philosophy in the first place. However we may choose to define it, in the context of the Buddhist tradition, philosophical argumentation has a soteriological function. It is an aid to liberation designed to remove confusion about the path and reality itself.

An important concept in this regard is that of view (dṛṣṭi; lta ba), featured in various lists condensing the Buddhist path into its key elements.² It refers to a correct understanding of the world and of the path to liberation, and thus forms the basis for one’s meditative training and conduct in daily life. Without the right view one is said to be like a blind person, unable to see where one is headed and incapable of avoiding obstacles on the way. With the right view, however, one will be able to distinguish wholesome from unwholesome, true from false, and will then be able to progress on the path. By cultivating and refining the right view, one is able to shed increasingly subtle veils of ignorance (āvaraṇa; sgrib pa), making the mind increasingly free. It is thus the view that will determine to what degree an individual is bound in perpetual cycles of suffering and dissatisfaction (i.e., samsara) or is free from conditioned existence (i.e., nirvana). The highest view is one that perfectly understands phenomena in terms of both their ultimate nature (ji lta ba mkhyen pa) and their conventional existence (ji snyed pa mkhyen pa), and is a quality exclusive to buddhas. In this sense, the right view represents not only the foundation but also the means and the aim of the path.

The role of Buddhist dialectics is simply to establish the right view, correctly and beyond doubt, either for oneself or for others. What is the right view precisely? How does one know whether one’s understanding is accurate or mistaken? How does one refute wrong views about reality and prove to others that one’s own understanding is the right one? It is the answers to these questions that mushroomed into the vast libraries of what we might call Buddhist philosophy.

THE THREE TURNINGS OF THE DHARMA WHEEL

It is said that the Buddha’s method of guiding his followers was always adapted to his audience. His teaching is likened to the way specific medicines are used to cure particular diseases. Thus the instructions given to a certain group of disciples in a given context were not in line with—or even seemed to contradict—teachings given at another time, simply because it was not appropriate for all students to hear the same words in order to progress on the spiritual path.

To help later followers distinguish between the words that are to be taken literally and those that require interpretation, the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra (Sutra Unraveling the Intent) introduces the hermeneutic principle of differentiating between interpretive meaning (neyārtha; drang don) and definitive meaning (nītārtha; nges don). With this tool, the discourses may be divided into three groups called turnings. The first two turnings are interpretive and the third one is definitive, according to this sutra.

In the sutras of the first turning based on the exposition of the four ārya truths,³ the Buddha affirms the existence of certain phenomena such as form, feeling, discrimination, formative factors, and consciousness, that is, the five skandhas, or psychophysical groups of phenomena that make up a human being. What is denied in those discourses is the existence of an independent, substantially existent identity or self, which is asserted to be imputed on the basis of those skandhas.

In the sutras of the second turning based on the Perfection of Wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) teachings, the existence of these phenomena is denied. In the discourses of this group we find words such as, no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no formative factors, no consciousness, and so forth. These passages refer to the emptiness (śūnyatā; stong pa nyid) or lack of inherent existence of all phenomena, explained to be their ultimate reality.

To resolve the contradictions emerging from the first two turnings, the Buddha turned the Dharma wheel a third time, making a clear distinction between the discourses of interpretive meaning and those of definitive meaning. In these teachings, certain phenomena are identified as nonexistent, while others are defined as bearing the characteristics of existence. The emphasis in this group of discourses is on the luminous and primordially untainted nature of mind, the potential for awakening, or buddha-nature, present in all beings, and on the three-nature model of reality that will be explained below. The Sutra Unraveling the Intent is itself part of this group.

THE YOGĀCĀRA TRADITION

Over time, a number of Buddhist schools of thought emerged in India, adhering to the various ideas presented in the sutras. The two main Mahayana schools of thought, Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, are related to the second and third turnings of the Dharma wheel respectively.

Based on the Perfection of Wisdom sutras and the writings of the Indian master Nāgārjuna (fl. 2nd century c.e.), the Middle Way school (madhyamaka; dbu ma) emphasizes the doctrine of emptiness, that is, the lack of self-nature asserted to be the ultimate reality