What we take for "reality" is, for the most part, a
projection
of
our mind.
our mind.
Khenchen-Thrangu-Rinpoche-Asanga-Uttara-Tantra
?
The Uttara Tantra: A Treatise on Buddha Nature
A Commentary on
The Uttara Tantra Sastra
of Asariga
by
The Venerable Khenchen Thrangu, Rinpoche
Abbot o f Rumtek Monastery
lYansIated by
Ken and Katia Holmes
Sri Satguru Publications
A Division of
Indian Books Centre
Shakti Nagar, Delhi INDIA
? Published by :
SRI SATGURU PUBLICATIONS Indological & Oriental Publishers
A Division of
Indian Books Centre 40/5, Shakti Nagar, Delhi-110007
India
Copyright (C) 1989 by Namo Buddha Seminar, 1390 Kalmia Avenue, Boulder, CO, 80304, U. SA.
First Edition :Delhi, 1994 ISBN 81-7030-401-6
All rights reserved, No part of this book, either text or art, may be reproduced in any form, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the Namo Buddha Seminar except for brief quotations it. a review.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the many persons who helped make this book possible. First of all we would like to thank Ken and Katia Holmes for translating this book from Tibetan into English. We would also like to thank Jean Johnson, Clarke Fountain, David Reed, and Daniel Pirofsky for help in producing this book. A special thanks to Debra Ann Robinson, Mary McCarry, Tess Evans, Phyllis Ohm, Margot Newman, Katie Haggerty, and Susan Roe who patiently transcribed the tapes of Thrangu Rinpoche's talks.
? Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Contents
Foreword VII
An Introduction to the Uttar Tantra 1 The Buddha 21 The Dharma 28 The Sangha 39 An Introduction to Book II:
The Last Four Vajra Points 49 Buddha Nature : The Ten Aspects 54
Buddha Nature II: The Nine Examples 85 Enlightenment 102 The Qualities ofBuddhahood 145
Chapter 10 Buddha Activity 165 Chapter11 TheBenefitsoftheText 180 Glossary 191 Appendix A 199
? Foreword
India has been the ground for some of the most profound philosophical schools in the world. There is, of course, the Vedic tradition based largely on the Hindu tradition which is one of the world's oldest systems of philosophy. Then there is a more recent philosophical school which began in India around the first century A. D. and ended around the tenth century. This was the time of the flourishing of a school of Buddhism which centered in a dozen monastic universities in Northern India. This school was founded by realized individuals, rather than just scholars, and devoted itself to the examination of reality. These Buddhist
practitioners and scholars illuminated the notion that what we conventionally take for real and solid, is not. They developed many logical arguments and demonstrations with the tools they had available to them at the time to show that everything as we perceive it is not as it is but rather an empty of inherent existence (Skt. Sunyata). What we take for "reality" is, for the most part, a projection of
our mind.
This philosophical tradition which became known as
mahayana Buddhism spread throughout the Far East but has been largely ignored in our modem, scientific age. This, however, is ironic because now physicist working on the frontiers of subatomic theory have basically come up with the notion that nothing is solid, but rather is almost
completely empty space with certain energy relations between them. Furthermore, if we even try to apply simple logic to these "building blocks" of matter such as electron^, we have to conclude that these elementary particles do ntft exist in any single place and can only be described in terms
? vi i i
of probability of where they might be and in their relationship to the rest of the material of the universe. Even in our more down-to-earth sciences we are discovering that objects which we thought of as distinct objects such as a single tree in a forest must be thought of as a complex organic combination with highly complicated interactions with the surrounding environment and not as a single unit.
What does this mean to the ordinary individual? Il
means that for us to gain any understanding of why we
were placed on this earth and how we should live our life
now we are here, we have to examine this world to see
what is lasting and enduring, and what is just a transitory
display of phenomena. The Madhyamaka school with great
masters such as Nagarjuna, Asanga, Vasubandhu, / ? >>.
Chandraklrti, Dignaga, Naropa, Shantarakshita, Shantideva did just this. They demonstrated that our suffering and problems and confusion in this world is due to our almost innate belief that we are a self as a solid enduring object.
Unfortunately, with the confusion after the Moslem invasion of India a vast amount of this literature was lost in India and only fragments of it remain in Sanskrit. However, a large portion of this literature was translated into Tibetan and written down and studied and practiced in Tibet. Because of this one of the greatest works of this tradition, The Uttara Tantra by the great scholar Asanga was preserved. This book consists of 404 verses devoted almost exclusively to enduring and permanent in this world, namely, tathagatagarba or buddha nature. Buddha nature is that primary essence that all beings possess and which is the essence that makes it possible for all beings to
achieve enlightenment. The Uttara Tantra is considered so
? important in the Tibetan tradition that these root verses are often memorized. In addition this text is also extremely relevant for all Buddhist practitioners because it answers many questions such as how can one tell if someone is enlightened and what are the necessary qualities to achieve enlightenment.
In the late 1970s Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland invited the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche to come to Europe and teach. Thrangu Rinpoche was eminently qualified because he had just finished establishing the curriculum for the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism for its head, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. He chose one of the most important texts of Tibetan Buddhism to begin with and spent several months giving a line by line commentary on this Uttara Tantra.
The Uttara Tantra like many texts of the time was written in very terse, compact language with extremely deep and subtle references which makes the text accessible to only an extremely erudite scholar. This book follows an oral tradition used by lamas for the last ten centuries which meant that every point was numbered, placed in a category, stated, restated, emphasized, and then summarized. Had the transcripts simply been typeset, the commentary would
have been about 700 pages long and would have been very difficult to follow. So with the help of chapters, headings, and extensive elimination of repetition and categorization, the Uttara Tantra was brought down to a manageable size which could be easily read by Westerners. At the suggestion of Ken Holmes the numbers of the verses in the Changeless Nature were added in brackets before the
corresponding paragraphs of the commentary so one can read the verses of the Changeless Nature and then read the
? corresponding commentary. A glossary and appendix of Tibetan terms were also added for the reader not familiar with Buddhist terms. An attempt was also made to make the commentary so that the reader could read it without having to refer to the root text.
The result is quite extraordinary. We have a complete rendering of an intact text of the period by someone who not only has studied it for a lifetime, but who has done the same meditative practices that Asanga did to reach the realization described in the text. In addition to this we have Thrangu Rinpoche's line by line exposition explaining every word of the text. The covering of a text with this precision with the guide of Jamgon Kongtrul's shastra which has to be one of the greatest commentaries on any religious text of this period is something which has been available to only a few rare individuals living over the past
centuries in monasteries in Tibet
Clark Johnson,Ph. D. December 21, 1993
? Chapter 1
An Introduction to the Uttara Tantra
The Buddha gave many teachings and these teachings are classified into three turnings of the wheel of dharma. The subject matter of the first turning of the wheel of dharma are the four noble truths. These truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path. The teachings of this first turning were aimed at individuals who did not have the sharpest intelligence and needed teachings that were easier to comprehend. In this turning the Buddha stated there was suffering, that the defilements were the cause of suffering, and there was a possibility for the liberation from all of this. Everything in this turning
was phrased in terms of something tangible and in terms of conventional reality or relative truth. In the second turning the Buddha took a different position by explaining that everything that appears to exist actually does not have this reality. In this turning the Buddha said, "There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste" etc. (as in the Prajha-
pUramitU or the Heart sutra) showing that all the objects of the senses and all the forms of appearance are simply illusory and have no ultimate reality. So, the actual nature of all phenomena is voidness.
In the second turning the Buddha established that all phenomena are void but this point was not elucidated.
? However, in the third turning, the Buddha revealed the ultimate nature of phenomena by showing that this voidness was not a total absence, a total emptiness of everything, but has qualities of the ultimate nature of phenomena. These teachings also show that all beings possess the essence of the Buddha. If they work on the path, they will be able tc develop the perfect knowledge of the Buddha. The Uttara Tantra explains that this essence of Buddhahood is present in the mind of all beings. After the teachings of the third turning, many works were
composed by learned teachers which pertained to this same subject matter. For example, the bodhisatrva Maitreva composed five teachings on this topic.
This Commentary
The Uttara Tantra is one of the five teachings of Maitreya and is related to the third turning. This text on the Uttara Tantra is based on the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and has two main parts. The first part is a general introduction which covers the nature of the text, the author, how it was composed, and so forth which is
reviewed in this chapter. 1 The second part of the commentary is on the actual text itself and is divided into eight points.
The first point is that there are two kinds of Buddhist teachings--the words of the Buddha (sutras) and the commentaries composed by others on the Buddha's works
*Thc Uttara Tantra is sastra by Maitreya on the dharanisvaranraja sutra of the Buddha. Thrangu Rinpoche used the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul (1813-1899) which has not been translated into English for the basis of this exposition. The root text has been translated by Ken and Katia Holmes as The Changeless Nature.
? (fastras). One might think the Uttara Tantra is composed of the words of the Buddha because Maitreya is a representative of the Buddha. However, this work is related to the subject matter taught in the third turning and therefore it is classified as an explanatory text composed by someone other than the Buddha.
Secondly, what source did the Uttara Tantra rely on? Some claim this teaching is related to the Mind Only (Skt. Cittamatra) school, but this is not so because this teaching relates directly to the teachings on absolute truth. The Uttara Tantra derives its subject matter from all the sutras of the three turnings--it is like the quintessence of all these sutras and particularly it has a close connection to one sutra taught at the request of King Isvara.
The third point examines the authorship of this work. In general, the sastras are produced by authors who have one of three qualifications. The best is one who has a direct understanding of the absolute truth of phenomena. If someone does not have this understanding, then second best is someone who has met face-to-face with a deity such as Manjusri. The poorest are those authors who are well
educated and only have a thorough knowledge of the five branches of the sciences (grammar, logic, craftsmanship, healing, and spirituality). Texts written by someone who doesn't have one of the above three qualifications aren't worthy of a Buddhist commentary. Maitreya, the author of the Uttara Tantra, is even better than the best category because not only did he possess realization of absolute truth, but he was a bodhisattva of the highest level.
The fourth point discusses how this work spread after Maitreya had given the teachings of the Uttara Tantra. Buddha Sakyamuni had actually made a prediction that
? there would be a teaching given by one of the highest bodhisattvas and it would relate to the highest possible meaning and these teachings would be given to men and propagated among them.
The Story o f Asanga
The story of the spread of the Uttara Tantra begins at the famous Buddhist University of NSlanda in India. The university was set on fire by heretics and many precious teachings were destroyed including most of the Abhidharma teachings. At that time a nun called Salwai Tsultim became very worried that the teachings would be lost. So she decided to have sons to allow the teachings to grpw and spread again. She had two sons: Asanga who became a proponent of the mahayana teachings and Vasubandhu who became an outstanding proponent of the hlnayUna teachings.
Asanga began by meditating very diligently on Maitreya. He practiced for three years and didn't seem to be getting any results. He became very depressed at not having accomplished anything in his meditation. So he left his retreat and on the way met a man who was rubbing a rock. He inquired and found that the man was rubbing the rock to get rid of it because the rock was blocking the sun from shining on his house. Asanga was so impressed by his perseverance that he decided to try again. He returned and meditated for 12 years and still did not feel he was getting anywhere with his meditation and became depressed again. He left his retreat and on the way he saw a dog which was
very sick and thin. The dog was very angry and ready to bite him. Suddenly, Asanga felt strong compassion for the
? dog because he noticed that the dog had worms in his wounds. He wanted to remove the worms to help the dog, but realized that if he pulled the worms off, he would kill them. It was a choice between killing the worms or leaving the worms on the dog which would cause the dog to die. But Asanga felt such strong compassion and felt that he must find a way to get the worms out. He thought, "If I take the worms off with my tongue, then the worms won't be hurt and the dog will get better. " So he leaned down and
stuck out his tongue; and as he touched the ground, Maitreya appeared before him. He saw Maitreya and exclaimed, "How is it possible! I have been practicing this meditation for 12 years and haven't been able to meet you. You really don't have much compassion for me. " Maitreya said, "It wasn't my lack of compassion. I was there the whole time but you couldn't see me because you had too many obscurations. After 12 years of practice, your obscurations had become so slight that when you saw the
dog, you were able to have compassion and to see me. " After their meeting, Maitreya and Asanga went to the Tusita buddha-field and there Maitreya gave teachings on the second turning to Asanga. From these teachings and especially the teachings of the Prajhdpdramita Asanga composed the Abhisamaydlankdra. Maitreya also gave teachings on the third turning with some related to the
relative meaning and some related to the absolute meaning of the dharma. Three teachings pertained to the relative meaning: the MahaydnasUtralankara, the Dharmatavib- hahga, and the Madhydntavibhanga. The teachings related to the absolute meaning of reality were the Abhisamayp<<- lankdra and the Uttara Tantra &stra. So Maitreya gave,, Asanga these five teachings and they were transmitted to
human beings of our world.
? The fifth point discusses the line of transmission of the Uttara Tantra. The teachings of Maitreya were transmitted in two lines--the words and the meaning. The Uttara Tantra was given to Asanga and he transmitted it to his brother Vasubandhu. Later Asanga wrote five works on the five transmissions from Maitreya to make Maitreya's teachings more accessible to everyone. His brother Vasubandhu also wrote commentaries on two of these five works of Maitreya. He wrote a commentary on the
Dharmatavibhanga and the Madhyantavibhahga.
Among these five teachings, three were disseminated quite widely. These were the Abhisamayalahkara, the Madhyantavibhariga, and the Mahayanasutralahkara and were transmitted by Vasubandhu to his disciple Dinnaga. DinnSga passed them to his disciple Lodro Tenpa who disseminated these teachings quite widely. The other two
teachings, the Uttara Tantra and the Dharmatavibhanga, were more profound and were given to only a few pupils.
In Tibet there were two periods of history in which the Buddhist teachings were widely spread. The earlier period during the eighth century at the time of King Thrisong Deutsen or the "time of the three," with the ":hree" being mahapandita Santaraksita, King Thrisong Deutsen, and Guru Padmasambhava. During this time these first three teachings of Maitreya were translated into Tibetan and disseminated widely. The two profound works were hidden treasures (Tib. terma2) and were hidden so that they were not known during this first period. Much later Maitripa,
one of Marpa's gurus, saw a stupa that was cracked and
^ Tibetan words in this text arc spelled as they are pronounced, not as they are spelled in Tibetan. Their Tibetan spelling can be found in Appendix A.
? from the stupa came a brilliant light. Maitripa became curious and found these two texts inside the crack. He found their meaning was so deep that he wasn't sure he understood them. So he prayed to Maitreya for blessings to understand these texts and Maitreya appeared to him and gave him the ritual reading (Tib. lung). After that reading Maitripa could understand the text clearly. These teachings were then passed on to many panditas or the great scholars in India.
Later these deeper teachings spread in Tibet. There were two main lines of transmission--the transmission of the words and the transmission of the meaning of the text. The words were transmitted mainly by Loden Sherab. He was a translator who went to a preeminently Muslim part of India where he received the teachings of the Uttara
Tantra and the Dharamatavibhaga and translated them into Tibetan. His approach followed that of the Madhyamaka school. At the same time there was another lama named Senka Uche who received the teachings of the Uttara Tantra from the Indian teacher, Guru Tsatsana. He meditated on it to understand its deep meaning and started the meditation transmission.
The main difference between the scholarly and the meditative approach is that in the meditative approach "voidness" is not understood as the absence of everything, but as containing the essence of Buddhahood. In the meditative approach, however, one meditates on the voidness as containing the essence of Buddha to
understand this concept. This tradition combined the theoretical material of the Uttara Tantra with meditation of. mahamudra. This tradition based on the . five teachings of Maitreya was passed on to the third Karmapa, Rangjung
? Doije. He wrote a short summary of the Uttara Tantra and through him the Uttara Tantra was transmitted to all the
main lamas of the Kagyu lineage. For example, this teaching was transmitted to the eighth Shamarpa Rinpoche, Chuji Dondrup, and to the eighth Tai Situpa Rinpoche, Chuji Jungne, and to Jamgon Kongtrul.
The sixth point concerns the subject matter of the Uttara Tantra. As mentioned before, the Buddha gave his teachings in three turnings of the wheel of dharma. All his teachings, however, have a similar root with the essential point being the absence of a "self. " Some religions believe that if one does what pleases God or the gods, then they
will be rewarded one and one will obtain greater happiness. They also believe that if one does something that goes against God or the gods, one will encounter misfortunes and fall into a lower realm. There is no such belief in the Buddhist teachings. What happens to one is not the result of pleasing or displeasing a god. The Buddha's teachings are based on the study of the nature of things, so when the nature of phenomena is completely understood, one has attained Buddhahood. If one does not understand the nature of things, one continues to live in conditioned existence (Skt. samsUra).
The key to all Buddhist teachings is the twofold absence of self and of phenomena. Normally, we believe that we are a separate "self' and this belief in a "self' arises from the idea of "I. " As soon as we think "I" or "myself," there develops the wish to keep this "I" happy and comfortable which gives rise to desire. We want to
provide that "I" with all the happiness we can find. Then when this "I" feels threatened, the threat generates anger. This "I" will also feel it is better and has better qualities
? than others and this will generate pride. If this "I" fears there are others who are as good or better, then jealousy will be generated. To summarize, as soon as there is this belief that the individual self has a reality, then all the five negative afflictions (Skt klefas) of desire, anger, aversion,
pride, and jealousy are generated. The belief in the existence of phenomena is a consequence of the first belief. When we believe we exist, then we also believe that all phenomena one experiences also exists.
The main point of Buddhist practice is to eliminate the belief of self and phenomena. The way to eliminate the belief in self is to investigate the location of the one who thinks "I am.
What we take for "reality" is, for the most part, a projection of
our mind.
This philosophical tradition which became known as
mahayana Buddhism spread throughout the Far East but has been largely ignored in our modem, scientific age. This, however, is ironic because now physicist working on the frontiers of subatomic theory have basically come up with the notion that nothing is solid, but rather is almost
completely empty space with certain energy relations between them. Furthermore, if we even try to apply simple logic to these "building blocks" of matter such as electron^, we have to conclude that these elementary particles do ntft exist in any single place and can only be described in terms
? vi i i
of probability of where they might be and in their relationship to the rest of the material of the universe. Even in our more down-to-earth sciences we are discovering that objects which we thought of as distinct objects such as a single tree in a forest must be thought of as a complex organic combination with highly complicated interactions with the surrounding environment and not as a single unit.
What does this mean to the ordinary individual? Il
means that for us to gain any understanding of why we
were placed on this earth and how we should live our life
now we are here, we have to examine this world to see
what is lasting and enduring, and what is just a transitory
display of phenomena. The Madhyamaka school with great
masters such as Nagarjuna, Asanga, Vasubandhu, / ? >>.
Chandraklrti, Dignaga, Naropa, Shantarakshita, Shantideva did just this. They demonstrated that our suffering and problems and confusion in this world is due to our almost innate belief that we are a self as a solid enduring object.
Unfortunately, with the confusion after the Moslem invasion of India a vast amount of this literature was lost in India and only fragments of it remain in Sanskrit. However, a large portion of this literature was translated into Tibetan and written down and studied and practiced in Tibet. Because of this one of the greatest works of this tradition, The Uttara Tantra by the great scholar Asanga was preserved. This book consists of 404 verses devoted almost exclusively to enduring and permanent in this world, namely, tathagatagarba or buddha nature. Buddha nature is that primary essence that all beings possess and which is the essence that makes it possible for all beings to
achieve enlightenment. The Uttara Tantra is considered so
? important in the Tibetan tradition that these root verses are often memorized. In addition this text is also extremely relevant for all Buddhist practitioners because it answers many questions such as how can one tell if someone is enlightened and what are the necessary qualities to achieve enlightenment.
In the late 1970s Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland invited the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche to come to Europe and teach. Thrangu Rinpoche was eminently qualified because he had just finished establishing the curriculum for the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism for its head, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. He chose one of the most important texts of Tibetan Buddhism to begin with and spent several months giving a line by line commentary on this Uttara Tantra.
The Uttara Tantra like many texts of the time was written in very terse, compact language with extremely deep and subtle references which makes the text accessible to only an extremely erudite scholar. This book follows an oral tradition used by lamas for the last ten centuries which meant that every point was numbered, placed in a category, stated, restated, emphasized, and then summarized. Had the transcripts simply been typeset, the commentary would
have been about 700 pages long and would have been very difficult to follow. So with the help of chapters, headings, and extensive elimination of repetition and categorization, the Uttara Tantra was brought down to a manageable size which could be easily read by Westerners. At the suggestion of Ken Holmes the numbers of the verses in the Changeless Nature were added in brackets before the
corresponding paragraphs of the commentary so one can read the verses of the Changeless Nature and then read the
? corresponding commentary. A glossary and appendix of Tibetan terms were also added for the reader not familiar with Buddhist terms. An attempt was also made to make the commentary so that the reader could read it without having to refer to the root text.
The result is quite extraordinary. We have a complete rendering of an intact text of the period by someone who not only has studied it for a lifetime, but who has done the same meditative practices that Asanga did to reach the realization described in the text. In addition to this we have Thrangu Rinpoche's line by line exposition explaining every word of the text. The covering of a text with this precision with the guide of Jamgon Kongtrul's shastra which has to be one of the greatest commentaries on any religious text of this period is something which has been available to only a few rare individuals living over the past
centuries in monasteries in Tibet
Clark Johnson,Ph. D. December 21, 1993
? Chapter 1
An Introduction to the Uttara Tantra
The Buddha gave many teachings and these teachings are classified into three turnings of the wheel of dharma. The subject matter of the first turning of the wheel of dharma are the four noble truths. These truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path. The teachings of this first turning were aimed at individuals who did not have the sharpest intelligence and needed teachings that were easier to comprehend. In this turning the Buddha stated there was suffering, that the defilements were the cause of suffering, and there was a possibility for the liberation from all of this. Everything in this turning
was phrased in terms of something tangible and in terms of conventional reality or relative truth. In the second turning the Buddha took a different position by explaining that everything that appears to exist actually does not have this reality. In this turning the Buddha said, "There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste" etc. (as in the Prajha-
pUramitU or the Heart sutra) showing that all the objects of the senses and all the forms of appearance are simply illusory and have no ultimate reality. So, the actual nature of all phenomena is voidness.
In the second turning the Buddha established that all phenomena are void but this point was not elucidated.
? However, in the third turning, the Buddha revealed the ultimate nature of phenomena by showing that this voidness was not a total absence, a total emptiness of everything, but has qualities of the ultimate nature of phenomena. These teachings also show that all beings possess the essence of the Buddha. If they work on the path, they will be able tc develop the perfect knowledge of the Buddha. The Uttara Tantra explains that this essence of Buddhahood is present in the mind of all beings. After the teachings of the third turning, many works were
composed by learned teachers which pertained to this same subject matter. For example, the bodhisatrva Maitreva composed five teachings on this topic.
This Commentary
The Uttara Tantra is one of the five teachings of Maitreya and is related to the third turning. This text on the Uttara Tantra is based on the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and has two main parts. The first part is a general introduction which covers the nature of the text, the author, how it was composed, and so forth which is
reviewed in this chapter. 1 The second part of the commentary is on the actual text itself and is divided into eight points.
The first point is that there are two kinds of Buddhist teachings--the words of the Buddha (sutras) and the commentaries composed by others on the Buddha's works
*Thc Uttara Tantra is sastra by Maitreya on the dharanisvaranraja sutra of the Buddha. Thrangu Rinpoche used the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul (1813-1899) which has not been translated into English for the basis of this exposition. The root text has been translated by Ken and Katia Holmes as The Changeless Nature.
? (fastras). One might think the Uttara Tantra is composed of the words of the Buddha because Maitreya is a representative of the Buddha. However, this work is related to the subject matter taught in the third turning and therefore it is classified as an explanatory text composed by someone other than the Buddha.
Secondly, what source did the Uttara Tantra rely on? Some claim this teaching is related to the Mind Only (Skt. Cittamatra) school, but this is not so because this teaching relates directly to the teachings on absolute truth. The Uttara Tantra derives its subject matter from all the sutras of the three turnings--it is like the quintessence of all these sutras and particularly it has a close connection to one sutra taught at the request of King Isvara.
The third point examines the authorship of this work. In general, the sastras are produced by authors who have one of three qualifications. The best is one who has a direct understanding of the absolute truth of phenomena. If someone does not have this understanding, then second best is someone who has met face-to-face with a deity such as Manjusri. The poorest are those authors who are well
educated and only have a thorough knowledge of the five branches of the sciences (grammar, logic, craftsmanship, healing, and spirituality). Texts written by someone who doesn't have one of the above three qualifications aren't worthy of a Buddhist commentary. Maitreya, the author of the Uttara Tantra, is even better than the best category because not only did he possess realization of absolute truth, but he was a bodhisattva of the highest level.
The fourth point discusses how this work spread after Maitreya had given the teachings of the Uttara Tantra. Buddha Sakyamuni had actually made a prediction that
? there would be a teaching given by one of the highest bodhisattvas and it would relate to the highest possible meaning and these teachings would be given to men and propagated among them.
The Story o f Asanga
The story of the spread of the Uttara Tantra begins at the famous Buddhist University of NSlanda in India. The university was set on fire by heretics and many precious teachings were destroyed including most of the Abhidharma teachings. At that time a nun called Salwai Tsultim became very worried that the teachings would be lost. So she decided to have sons to allow the teachings to grpw and spread again. She had two sons: Asanga who became a proponent of the mahayana teachings and Vasubandhu who became an outstanding proponent of the hlnayUna teachings.
Asanga began by meditating very diligently on Maitreya. He practiced for three years and didn't seem to be getting any results. He became very depressed at not having accomplished anything in his meditation. So he left his retreat and on the way met a man who was rubbing a rock. He inquired and found that the man was rubbing the rock to get rid of it because the rock was blocking the sun from shining on his house. Asanga was so impressed by his perseverance that he decided to try again. He returned and meditated for 12 years and still did not feel he was getting anywhere with his meditation and became depressed again. He left his retreat and on the way he saw a dog which was
very sick and thin. The dog was very angry and ready to bite him. Suddenly, Asanga felt strong compassion for the
? dog because he noticed that the dog had worms in his wounds. He wanted to remove the worms to help the dog, but realized that if he pulled the worms off, he would kill them. It was a choice between killing the worms or leaving the worms on the dog which would cause the dog to die. But Asanga felt such strong compassion and felt that he must find a way to get the worms out. He thought, "If I take the worms off with my tongue, then the worms won't be hurt and the dog will get better. " So he leaned down and
stuck out his tongue; and as he touched the ground, Maitreya appeared before him. He saw Maitreya and exclaimed, "How is it possible! I have been practicing this meditation for 12 years and haven't been able to meet you. You really don't have much compassion for me. " Maitreya said, "It wasn't my lack of compassion. I was there the whole time but you couldn't see me because you had too many obscurations. After 12 years of practice, your obscurations had become so slight that when you saw the
dog, you were able to have compassion and to see me. " After their meeting, Maitreya and Asanga went to the Tusita buddha-field and there Maitreya gave teachings on the second turning to Asanga. From these teachings and especially the teachings of the Prajhdpdramita Asanga composed the Abhisamaydlankdra. Maitreya also gave teachings on the third turning with some related to the
relative meaning and some related to the absolute meaning of the dharma. Three teachings pertained to the relative meaning: the MahaydnasUtralankara, the Dharmatavib- hahga, and the Madhydntavibhanga. The teachings related to the absolute meaning of reality were the Abhisamayp<<- lankdra and the Uttara Tantra &stra. So Maitreya gave,, Asanga these five teachings and they were transmitted to
human beings of our world.
? The fifth point discusses the line of transmission of the Uttara Tantra. The teachings of Maitreya were transmitted in two lines--the words and the meaning. The Uttara Tantra was given to Asanga and he transmitted it to his brother Vasubandhu. Later Asanga wrote five works on the five transmissions from Maitreya to make Maitreya's teachings more accessible to everyone. His brother Vasubandhu also wrote commentaries on two of these five works of Maitreya. He wrote a commentary on the
Dharmatavibhanga and the Madhyantavibhahga.
Among these five teachings, three were disseminated quite widely. These were the Abhisamayalahkara, the Madhyantavibhariga, and the Mahayanasutralahkara and were transmitted by Vasubandhu to his disciple Dinnaga. DinnSga passed them to his disciple Lodro Tenpa who disseminated these teachings quite widely. The other two
teachings, the Uttara Tantra and the Dharmatavibhanga, were more profound and were given to only a few pupils.
In Tibet there were two periods of history in which the Buddhist teachings were widely spread. The earlier period during the eighth century at the time of King Thrisong Deutsen or the "time of the three," with the ":hree" being mahapandita Santaraksita, King Thrisong Deutsen, and Guru Padmasambhava. During this time these first three teachings of Maitreya were translated into Tibetan and disseminated widely. The two profound works were hidden treasures (Tib. terma2) and were hidden so that they were not known during this first period. Much later Maitripa,
one of Marpa's gurus, saw a stupa that was cracked and
^ Tibetan words in this text arc spelled as they are pronounced, not as they are spelled in Tibetan. Their Tibetan spelling can be found in Appendix A.
? from the stupa came a brilliant light. Maitripa became curious and found these two texts inside the crack. He found their meaning was so deep that he wasn't sure he understood them. So he prayed to Maitreya for blessings to understand these texts and Maitreya appeared to him and gave him the ritual reading (Tib. lung). After that reading Maitripa could understand the text clearly. These teachings were then passed on to many panditas or the great scholars in India.
Later these deeper teachings spread in Tibet. There were two main lines of transmission--the transmission of the words and the transmission of the meaning of the text. The words were transmitted mainly by Loden Sherab. He was a translator who went to a preeminently Muslim part of India where he received the teachings of the Uttara
Tantra and the Dharamatavibhaga and translated them into Tibetan. His approach followed that of the Madhyamaka school. At the same time there was another lama named Senka Uche who received the teachings of the Uttara Tantra from the Indian teacher, Guru Tsatsana. He meditated on it to understand its deep meaning and started the meditation transmission.
The main difference between the scholarly and the meditative approach is that in the meditative approach "voidness" is not understood as the absence of everything, but as containing the essence of Buddhahood. In the meditative approach, however, one meditates on the voidness as containing the essence of Buddha to
understand this concept. This tradition combined the theoretical material of the Uttara Tantra with meditation of. mahamudra. This tradition based on the . five teachings of Maitreya was passed on to the third Karmapa, Rangjung
? Doije. He wrote a short summary of the Uttara Tantra and through him the Uttara Tantra was transmitted to all the
main lamas of the Kagyu lineage. For example, this teaching was transmitted to the eighth Shamarpa Rinpoche, Chuji Dondrup, and to the eighth Tai Situpa Rinpoche, Chuji Jungne, and to Jamgon Kongtrul.
The sixth point concerns the subject matter of the Uttara Tantra. As mentioned before, the Buddha gave his teachings in three turnings of the wheel of dharma. All his teachings, however, have a similar root with the essential point being the absence of a "self. " Some religions believe that if one does what pleases God or the gods, then they
will be rewarded one and one will obtain greater happiness. They also believe that if one does something that goes against God or the gods, one will encounter misfortunes and fall into a lower realm. There is no such belief in the Buddhist teachings. What happens to one is not the result of pleasing or displeasing a god. The Buddha's teachings are based on the study of the nature of things, so when the nature of phenomena is completely understood, one has attained Buddhahood. If one does not understand the nature of things, one continues to live in conditioned existence (Skt. samsUra).
The key to all Buddhist teachings is the twofold absence of self and of phenomena. Normally, we believe that we are a separate "self' and this belief in a "self' arises from the idea of "I. " As soon as we think "I" or "myself," there develops the wish to keep this "I" happy and comfortable which gives rise to desire. We want to
provide that "I" with all the happiness we can find. Then when this "I" feels threatened, the threat generates anger. This "I" will also feel it is better and has better qualities
? than others and this will generate pride. If this "I" fears there are others who are as good or better, then jealousy will be generated. To summarize, as soon as there is this belief that the individual self has a reality, then all the five negative afflictions (Skt klefas) of desire, anger, aversion,
pride, and jealousy are generated. The belief in the existence of phenomena is a consequence of the first belief. When we believe we exist, then we also believe that all phenomena one experiences also exists.
The main point of Buddhist practice is to eliminate the belief of self and phenomena. The way to eliminate the belief in self is to investigate the location of the one who thinks "I am. " If one thinks "I," then who is thinking "I"? Then try to find this "I" somewhere. If one meditates on this and investigates it closely, one will not find anything that is called the "I. " Through this process one will understand the nonexistence of self. The belief in the
existence of phenomena which appears to be real and substantial is more difficult. But when one considers it more closely, one will begin to see that phenomena are very much like a bubble in water or a dream. All these things do not have any solid reality either.
To summarize, the main point of all three turnings of the wheel of dharma is to understand the nonexistence of self and of phenomena. The absence of a "self' is voidness (Sunyatfi), but this voidness is not to be misunderstood as blankness, a complete emptiness. It is not like empty space because empty space is frozen and no change can manifest from it. Sunyata has a different quality. This voidness is by nature clarity (Tib. salwa). Having the nature of clarity
means that when beings are still impure, all the various appearances of phenomena can manifest within this clarity.
? When individuals have eliminated their impurities, Buddhahood is manifested in clarity. Within this clarity the forms (Skt. kayas) of the Buddha and the activity of the Buddha can manifest. So this voidness is full of all these possibilities. For everything to manifest in the impure and the pure phase, this voidness must be indivisible from clarity. The clarity represents the very vivid intelligent aspect. So clarity and emptiness are completely united and the union of these two is the essence of all Buddhas and is present within the mind of all beings. If one can realize the unity of clarity and voidness, one can reach Buddhahood.
A Commentary on
The Uttara Tantra Sastra
of Asariga
by
The Venerable Khenchen Thrangu, Rinpoche
Abbot o f Rumtek Monastery
lYansIated by
Ken and Katia Holmes
Sri Satguru Publications
A Division of
Indian Books Centre
Shakti Nagar, Delhi INDIA
? Published by :
SRI SATGURU PUBLICATIONS Indological & Oriental Publishers
A Division of
Indian Books Centre 40/5, Shakti Nagar, Delhi-110007
India
Copyright (C) 1989 by Namo Buddha Seminar, 1390 Kalmia Avenue, Boulder, CO, 80304, U. SA.
First Edition :Delhi, 1994 ISBN 81-7030-401-6
All rights reserved, No part of this book, either text or art, may be reproduced in any form, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the Namo Buddha Seminar except for brief quotations it. a review.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the many persons who helped make this book possible. First of all we would like to thank Ken and Katia Holmes for translating this book from Tibetan into English. We would also like to thank Jean Johnson, Clarke Fountain, David Reed, and Daniel Pirofsky for help in producing this book. A special thanks to Debra Ann Robinson, Mary McCarry, Tess Evans, Phyllis Ohm, Margot Newman, Katie Haggerty, and Susan Roe who patiently transcribed the tapes of Thrangu Rinpoche's talks.
? Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Contents
Foreword VII
An Introduction to the Uttar Tantra 1 The Buddha 21 The Dharma 28 The Sangha 39 An Introduction to Book II:
The Last Four Vajra Points 49 Buddha Nature : The Ten Aspects 54
Buddha Nature II: The Nine Examples 85 Enlightenment 102 The Qualities ofBuddhahood 145
Chapter 10 Buddha Activity 165 Chapter11 TheBenefitsoftheText 180 Glossary 191 Appendix A 199
? Foreword
India has been the ground for some of the most profound philosophical schools in the world. There is, of course, the Vedic tradition based largely on the Hindu tradition which is one of the world's oldest systems of philosophy. Then there is a more recent philosophical school which began in India around the first century A. D. and ended around the tenth century. This was the time of the flourishing of a school of Buddhism which centered in a dozen monastic universities in Northern India. This school was founded by realized individuals, rather than just scholars, and devoted itself to the examination of reality. These Buddhist
practitioners and scholars illuminated the notion that what we conventionally take for real and solid, is not. They developed many logical arguments and demonstrations with the tools they had available to them at the time to show that everything as we perceive it is not as it is but rather an empty of inherent existence (Skt. Sunyata). What we take for "reality" is, for the most part, a projection of
our mind.
This philosophical tradition which became known as
mahayana Buddhism spread throughout the Far East but has been largely ignored in our modem, scientific age. This, however, is ironic because now physicist working on the frontiers of subatomic theory have basically come up with the notion that nothing is solid, but rather is almost
completely empty space with certain energy relations between them. Furthermore, if we even try to apply simple logic to these "building blocks" of matter such as electron^, we have to conclude that these elementary particles do ntft exist in any single place and can only be described in terms
? vi i i
of probability of where they might be and in their relationship to the rest of the material of the universe. Even in our more down-to-earth sciences we are discovering that objects which we thought of as distinct objects such as a single tree in a forest must be thought of as a complex organic combination with highly complicated interactions with the surrounding environment and not as a single unit.
What does this mean to the ordinary individual? Il
means that for us to gain any understanding of why we
were placed on this earth and how we should live our life
now we are here, we have to examine this world to see
what is lasting and enduring, and what is just a transitory
display of phenomena. The Madhyamaka school with great
masters such as Nagarjuna, Asanga, Vasubandhu, / ? >>.
Chandraklrti, Dignaga, Naropa, Shantarakshita, Shantideva did just this. They demonstrated that our suffering and problems and confusion in this world is due to our almost innate belief that we are a self as a solid enduring object.
Unfortunately, with the confusion after the Moslem invasion of India a vast amount of this literature was lost in India and only fragments of it remain in Sanskrit. However, a large portion of this literature was translated into Tibetan and written down and studied and practiced in Tibet. Because of this one of the greatest works of this tradition, The Uttara Tantra by the great scholar Asanga was preserved. This book consists of 404 verses devoted almost exclusively to enduring and permanent in this world, namely, tathagatagarba or buddha nature. Buddha nature is that primary essence that all beings possess and which is the essence that makes it possible for all beings to
achieve enlightenment. The Uttara Tantra is considered so
? important in the Tibetan tradition that these root verses are often memorized. In addition this text is also extremely relevant for all Buddhist practitioners because it answers many questions such as how can one tell if someone is enlightened and what are the necessary qualities to achieve enlightenment.
In the late 1970s Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland invited the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche to come to Europe and teach. Thrangu Rinpoche was eminently qualified because he had just finished establishing the curriculum for the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism for its head, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. He chose one of the most important texts of Tibetan Buddhism to begin with and spent several months giving a line by line commentary on this Uttara Tantra.
The Uttara Tantra like many texts of the time was written in very terse, compact language with extremely deep and subtle references which makes the text accessible to only an extremely erudite scholar. This book follows an oral tradition used by lamas for the last ten centuries which meant that every point was numbered, placed in a category, stated, restated, emphasized, and then summarized. Had the transcripts simply been typeset, the commentary would
have been about 700 pages long and would have been very difficult to follow. So with the help of chapters, headings, and extensive elimination of repetition and categorization, the Uttara Tantra was brought down to a manageable size which could be easily read by Westerners. At the suggestion of Ken Holmes the numbers of the verses in the Changeless Nature were added in brackets before the
corresponding paragraphs of the commentary so one can read the verses of the Changeless Nature and then read the
? corresponding commentary. A glossary and appendix of Tibetan terms were also added for the reader not familiar with Buddhist terms. An attempt was also made to make the commentary so that the reader could read it without having to refer to the root text.
The result is quite extraordinary. We have a complete rendering of an intact text of the period by someone who not only has studied it for a lifetime, but who has done the same meditative practices that Asanga did to reach the realization described in the text. In addition to this we have Thrangu Rinpoche's line by line exposition explaining every word of the text. The covering of a text with this precision with the guide of Jamgon Kongtrul's shastra which has to be one of the greatest commentaries on any religious text of this period is something which has been available to only a few rare individuals living over the past
centuries in monasteries in Tibet
Clark Johnson,Ph. D. December 21, 1993
? Chapter 1
An Introduction to the Uttara Tantra
The Buddha gave many teachings and these teachings are classified into three turnings of the wheel of dharma. The subject matter of the first turning of the wheel of dharma are the four noble truths. These truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path. The teachings of this first turning were aimed at individuals who did not have the sharpest intelligence and needed teachings that were easier to comprehend. In this turning the Buddha stated there was suffering, that the defilements were the cause of suffering, and there was a possibility for the liberation from all of this. Everything in this turning
was phrased in terms of something tangible and in terms of conventional reality or relative truth. In the second turning the Buddha took a different position by explaining that everything that appears to exist actually does not have this reality. In this turning the Buddha said, "There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste" etc. (as in the Prajha-
pUramitU or the Heart sutra) showing that all the objects of the senses and all the forms of appearance are simply illusory and have no ultimate reality. So, the actual nature of all phenomena is voidness.
In the second turning the Buddha established that all phenomena are void but this point was not elucidated.
? However, in the third turning, the Buddha revealed the ultimate nature of phenomena by showing that this voidness was not a total absence, a total emptiness of everything, but has qualities of the ultimate nature of phenomena. These teachings also show that all beings possess the essence of the Buddha. If they work on the path, they will be able tc develop the perfect knowledge of the Buddha. The Uttara Tantra explains that this essence of Buddhahood is present in the mind of all beings. After the teachings of the third turning, many works were
composed by learned teachers which pertained to this same subject matter. For example, the bodhisatrva Maitreva composed five teachings on this topic.
This Commentary
The Uttara Tantra is one of the five teachings of Maitreya and is related to the third turning. This text on the Uttara Tantra is based on the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and has two main parts. The first part is a general introduction which covers the nature of the text, the author, how it was composed, and so forth which is
reviewed in this chapter. 1 The second part of the commentary is on the actual text itself and is divided into eight points.
The first point is that there are two kinds of Buddhist teachings--the words of the Buddha (sutras) and the commentaries composed by others on the Buddha's works
*Thc Uttara Tantra is sastra by Maitreya on the dharanisvaranraja sutra of the Buddha. Thrangu Rinpoche used the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul (1813-1899) which has not been translated into English for the basis of this exposition. The root text has been translated by Ken and Katia Holmes as The Changeless Nature.
? (fastras). One might think the Uttara Tantra is composed of the words of the Buddha because Maitreya is a representative of the Buddha. However, this work is related to the subject matter taught in the third turning and therefore it is classified as an explanatory text composed by someone other than the Buddha.
Secondly, what source did the Uttara Tantra rely on? Some claim this teaching is related to the Mind Only (Skt. Cittamatra) school, but this is not so because this teaching relates directly to the teachings on absolute truth. The Uttara Tantra derives its subject matter from all the sutras of the three turnings--it is like the quintessence of all these sutras and particularly it has a close connection to one sutra taught at the request of King Isvara.
The third point examines the authorship of this work. In general, the sastras are produced by authors who have one of three qualifications. The best is one who has a direct understanding of the absolute truth of phenomena. If someone does not have this understanding, then second best is someone who has met face-to-face with a deity such as Manjusri. The poorest are those authors who are well
educated and only have a thorough knowledge of the five branches of the sciences (grammar, logic, craftsmanship, healing, and spirituality). Texts written by someone who doesn't have one of the above three qualifications aren't worthy of a Buddhist commentary. Maitreya, the author of the Uttara Tantra, is even better than the best category because not only did he possess realization of absolute truth, but he was a bodhisattva of the highest level.
The fourth point discusses how this work spread after Maitreya had given the teachings of the Uttara Tantra. Buddha Sakyamuni had actually made a prediction that
? there would be a teaching given by one of the highest bodhisattvas and it would relate to the highest possible meaning and these teachings would be given to men and propagated among them.
The Story o f Asanga
The story of the spread of the Uttara Tantra begins at the famous Buddhist University of NSlanda in India. The university was set on fire by heretics and many precious teachings were destroyed including most of the Abhidharma teachings. At that time a nun called Salwai Tsultim became very worried that the teachings would be lost. So she decided to have sons to allow the teachings to grpw and spread again. She had two sons: Asanga who became a proponent of the mahayana teachings and Vasubandhu who became an outstanding proponent of the hlnayUna teachings.
Asanga began by meditating very diligently on Maitreya. He practiced for three years and didn't seem to be getting any results. He became very depressed at not having accomplished anything in his meditation. So he left his retreat and on the way met a man who was rubbing a rock. He inquired and found that the man was rubbing the rock to get rid of it because the rock was blocking the sun from shining on his house. Asanga was so impressed by his perseverance that he decided to try again. He returned and meditated for 12 years and still did not feel he was getting anywhere with his meditation and became depressed again. He left his retreat and on the way he saw a dog which was
very sick and thin. The dog was very angry and ready to bite him. Suddenly, Asanga felt strong compassion for the
? dog because he noticed that the dog had worms in his wounds. He wanted to remove the worms to help the dog, but realized that if he pulled the worms off, he would kill them. It was a choice between killing the worms or leaving the worms on the dog which would cause the dog to die. But Asanga felt such strong compassion and felt that he must find a way to get the worms out. He thought, "If I take the worms off with my tongue, then the worms won't be hurt and the dog will get better. " So he leaned down and
stuck out his tongue; and as he touched the ground, Maitreya appeared before him. He saw Maitreya and exclaimed, "How is it possible! I have been practicing this meditation for 12 years and haven't been able to meet you. You really don't have much compassion for me. " Maitreya said, "It wasn't my lack of compassion. I was there the whole time but you couldn't see me because you had too many obscurations. After 12 years of practice, your obscurations had become so slight that when you saw the
dog, you were able to have compassion and to see me. " After their meeting, Maitreya and Asanga went to the Tusita buddha-field and there Maitreya gave teachings on the second turning to Asanga. From these teachings and especially the teachings of the Prajhdpdramita Asanga composed the Abhisamaydlankdra. Maitreya also gave teachings on the third turning with some related to the
relative meaning and some related to the absolute meaning of the dharma. Three teachings pertained to the relative meaning: the MahaydnasUtralankara, the Dharmatavib- hahga, and the Madhydntavibhanga. The teachings related to the absolute meaning of reality were the Abhisamayp<<- lankdra and the Uttara Tantra &stra. So Maitreya gave,, Asanga these five teachings and they were transmitted to
human beings of our world.
? The fifth point discusses the line of transmission of the Uttara Tantra. The teachings of Maitreya were transmitted in two lines--the words and the meaning. The Uttara Tantra was given to Asanga and he transmitted it to his brother Vasubandhu. Later Asanga wrote five works on the five transmissions from Maitreya to make Maitreya's teachings more accessible to everyone. His brother Vasubandhu also wrote commentaries on two of these five works of Maitreya. He wrote a commentary on the
Dharmatavibhanga and the Madhyantavibhahga.
Among these five teachings, three were disseminated quite widely. These were the Abhisamayalahkara, the Madhyantavibhariga, and the Mahayanasutralahkara and were transmitted by Vasubandhu to his disciple Dinnaga. DinnSga passed them to his disciple Lodro Tenpa who disseminated these teachings quite widely. The other two
teachings, the Uttara Tantra and the Dharmatavibhanga, were more profound and were given to only a few pupils.
In Tibet there were two periods of history in which the Buddhist teachings were widely spread. The earlier period during the eighth century at the time of King Thrisong Deutsen or the "time of the three," with the ":hree" being mahapandita Santaraksita, King Thrisong Deutsen, and Guru Padmasambhava. During this time these first three teachings of Maitreya were translated into Tibetan and disseminated widely. The two profound works were hidden treasures (Tib. terma2) and were hidden so that they were not known during this first period. Much later Maitripa,
one of Marpa's gurus, saw a stupa that was cracked and
^ Tibetan words in this text arc spelled as they are pronounced, not as they are spelled in Tibetan. Their Tibetan spelling can be found in Appendix A.
? from the stupa came a brilliant light. Maitripa became curious and found these two texts inside the crack. He found their meaning was so deep that he wasn't sure he understood them. So he prayed to Maitreya for blessings to understand these texts and Maitreya appeared to him and gave him the ritual reading (Tib. lung). After that reading Maitripa could understand the text clearly. These teachings were then passed on to many panditas or the great scholars in India.
Later these deeper teachings spread in Tibet. There were two main lines of transmission--the transmission of the words and the transmission of the meaning of the text. The words were transmitted mainly by Loden Sherab. He was a translator who went to a preeminently Muslim part of India where he received the teachings of the Uttara
Tantra and the Dharamatavibhaga and translated them into Tibetan. His approach followed that of the Madhyamaka school. At the same time there was another lama named Senka Uche who received the teachings of the Uttara Tantra from the Indian teacher, Guru Tsatsana. He meditated on it to understand its deep meaning and started the meditation transmission.
The main difference between the scholarly and the meditative approach is that in the meditative approach "voidness" is not understood as the absence of everything, but as containing the essence of Buddhahood. In the meditative approach, however, one meditates on the voidness as containing the essence of Buddha to
understand this concept. This tradition combined the theoretical material of the Uttara Tantra with meditation of. mahamudra. This tradition based on the . five teachings of Maitreya was passed on to the third Karmapa, Rangjung
? Doije. He wrote a short summary of the Uttara Tantra and through him the Uttara Tantra was transmitted to all the
main lamas of the Kagyu lineage. For example, this teaching was transmitted to the eighth Shamarpa Rinpoche, Chuji Dondrup, and to the eighth Tai Situpa Rinpoche, Chuji Jungne, and to Jamgon Kongtrul.
The sixth point concerns the subject matter of the Uttara Tantra. As mentioned before, the Buddha gave his teachings in three turnings of the wheel of dharma. All his teachings, however, have a similar root with the essential point being the absence of a "self. " Some religions believe that if one does what pleases God or the gods, then they
will be rewarded one and one will obtain greater happiness. They also believe that if one does something that goes against God or the gods, one will encounter misfortunes and fall into a lower realm. There is no such belief in the Buddhist teachings. What happens to one is not the result of pleasing or displeasing a god. The Buddha's teachings are based on the study of the nature of things, so when the nature of phenomena is completely understood, one has attained Buddhahood. If one does not understand the nature of things, one continues to live in conditioned existence (Skt. samsUra).
The key to all Buddhist teachings is the twofold absence of self and of phenomena. Normally, we believe that we are a separate "self' and this belief in a "self' arises from the idea of "I. " As soon as we think "I" or "myself," there develops the wish to keep this "I" happy and comfortable which gives rise to desire. We want to
provide that "I" with all the happiness we can find. Then when this "I" feels threatened, the threat generates anger. This "I" will also feel it is better and has better qualities
? than others and this will generate pride. If this "I" fears there are others who are as good or better, then jealousy will be generated. To summarize, as soon as there is this belief that the individual self has a reality, then all the five negative afflictions (Skt klefas) of desire, anger, aversion,
pride, and jealousy are generated. The belief in the existence of phenomena is a consequence of the first belief. When we believe we exist, then we also believe that all phenomena one experiences also exists.
The main point of Buddhist practice is to eliminate the belief of self and phenomena. The way to eliminate the belief in self is to investigate the location of the one who thinks "I am.
What we take for "reality" is, for the most part, a projection of
our mind.
This philosophical tradition which became known as
mahayana Buddhism spread throughout the Far East but has been largely ignored in our modem, scientific age. This, however, is ironic because now physicist working on the frontiers of subatomic theory have basically come up with the notion that nothing is solid, but rather is almost
completely empty space with certain energy relations between them. Furthermore, if we even try to apply simple logic to these "building blocks" of matter such as electron^, we have to conclude that these elementary particles do ntft exist in any single place and can only be described in terms
? vi i i
of probability of where they might be and in their relationship to the rest of the material of the universe. Even in our more down-to-earth sciences we are discovering that objects which we thought of as distinct objects such as a single tree in a forest must be thought of as a complex organic combination with highly complicated interactions with the surrounding environment and not as a single unit.
What does this mean to the ordinary individual? Il
means that for us to gain any understanding of why we
were placed on this earth and how we should live our life
now we are here, we have to examine this world to see
what is lasting and enduring, and what is just a transitory
display of phenomena. The Madhyamaka school with great
masters such as Nagarjuna, Asanga, Vasubandhu, / ? >>.
Chandraklrti, Dignaga, Naropa, Shantarakshita, Shantideva did just this. They demonstrated that our suffering and problems and confusion in this world is due to our almost innate belief that we are a self as a solid enduring object.
Unfortunately, with the confusion after the Moslem invasion of India a vast amount of this literature was lost in India and only fragments of it remain in Sanskrit. However, a large portion of this literature was translated into Tibetan and written down and studied and practiced in Tibet. Because of this one of the greatest works of this tradition, The Uttara Tantra by the great scholar Asanga was preserved. This book consists of 404 verses devoted almost exclusively to enduring and permanent in this world, namely, tathagatagarba or buddha nature. Buddha nature is that primary essence that all beings possess and which is the essence that makes it possible for all beings to
achieve enlightenment. The Uttara Tantra is considered so
? important in the Tibetan tradition that these root verses are often memorized. In addition this text is also extremely relevant for all Buddhist practitioners because it answers many questions such as how can one tell if someone is enlightened and what are the necessary qualities to achieve enlightenment.
In the late 1970s Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland invited the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche to come to Europe and teach. Thrangu Rinpoche was eminently qualified because he had just finished establishing the curriculum for the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism for its head, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. He chose one of the most important texts of Tibetan Buddhism to begin with and spent several months giving a line by line commentary on this Uttara Tantra.
The Uttara Tantra like many texts of the time was written in very terse, compact language with extremely deep and subtle references which makes the text accessible to only an extremely erudite scholar. This book follows an oral tradition used by lamas for the last ten centuries which meant that every point was numbered, placed in a category, stated, restated, emphasized, and then summarized. Had the transcripts simply been typeset, the commentary would
have been about 700 pages long and would have been very difficult to follow. So with the help of chapters, headings, and extensive elimination of repetition and categorization, the Uttara Tantra was brought down to a manageable size which could be easily read by Westerners. At the suggestion of Ken Holmes the numbers of the verses in the Changeless Nature were added in brackets before the
corresponding paragraphs of the commentary so one can read the verses of the Changeless Nature and then read the
? corresponding commentary. A glossary and appendix of Tibetan terms were also added for the reader not familiar with Buddhist terms. An attempt was also made to make the commentary so that the reader could read it without having to refer to the root text.
The result is quite extraordinary. We have a complete rendering of an intact text of the period by someone who not only has studied it for a lifetime, but who has done the same meditative practices that Asanga did to reach the realization described in the text. In addition to this we have Thrangu Rinpoche's line by line exposition explaining every word of the text. The covering of a text with this precision with the guide of Jamgon Kongtrul's shastra which has to be one of the greatest commentaries on any religious text of this period is something which has been available to only a few rare individuals living over the past
centuries in monasteries in Tibet
Clark Johnson,Ph. D. December 21, 1993
? Chapter 1
An Introduction to the Uttara Tantra
The Buddha gave many teachings and these teachings are classified into three turnings of the wheel of dharma. The subject matter of the first turning of the wheel of dharma are the four noble truths. These truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path. The teachings of this first turning were aimed at individuals who did not have the sharpest intelligence and needed teachings that were easier to comprehend. In this turning the Buddha stated there was suffering, that the defilements were the cause of suffering, and there was a possibility for the liberation from all of this. Everything in this turning
was phrased in terms of something tangible and in terms of conventional reality or relative truth. In the second turning the Buddha took a different position by explaining that everything that appears to exist actually does not have this reality. In this turning the Buddha said, "There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste" etc. (as in the Prajha-
pUramitU or the Heart sutra) showing that all the objects of the senses and all the forms of appearance are simply illusory and have no ultimate reality. So, the actual nature of all phenomena is voidness.
In the second turning the Buddha established that all phenomena are void but this point was not elucidated.
? However, in the third turning, the Buddha revealed the ultimate nature of phenomena by showing that this voidness was not a total absence, a total emptiness of everything, but has qualities of the ultimate nature of phenomena. These teachings also show that all beings possess the essence of the Buddha. If they work on the path, they will be able tc develop the perfect knowledge of the Buddha. The Uttara Tantra explains that this essence of Buddhahood is present in the mind of all beings. After the teachings of the third turning, many works were
composed by learned teachers which pertained to this same subject matter. For example, the bodhisatrva Maitreva composed five teachings on this topic.
This Commentary
The Uttara Tantra is one of the five teachings of Maitreya and is related to the third turning. This text on the Uttara Tantra is based on the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and has two main parts. The first part is a general introduction which covers the nature of the text, the author, how it was composed, and so forth which is
reviewed in this chapter. 1 The second part of the commentary is on the actual text itself and is divided into eight points.
The first point is that there are two kinds of Buddhist teachings--the words of the Buddha (sutras) and the commentaries composed by others on the Buddha's works
*Thc Uttara Tantra is sastra by Maitreya on the dharanisvaranraja sutra of the Buddha. Thrangu Rinpoche used the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul (1813-1899) which has not been translated into English for the basis of this exposition. The root text has been translated by Ken and Katia Holmes as The Changeless Nature.
? (fastras). One might think the Uttara Tantra is composed of the words of the Buddha because Maitreya is a representative of the Buddha. However, this work is related to the subject matter taught in the third turning and therefore it is classified as an explanatory text composed by someone other than the Buddha.
Secondly, what source did the Uttara Tantra rely on? Some claim this teaching is related to the Mind Only (Skt. Cittamatra) school, but this is not so because this teaching relates directly to the teachings on absolute truth. The Uttara Tantra derives its subject matter from all the sutras of the three turnings--it is like the quintessence of all these sutras and particularly it has a close connection to one sutra taught at the request of King Isvara.
The third point examines the authorship of this work. In general, the sastras are produced by authors who have one of three qualifications. The best is one who has a direct understanding of the absolute truth of phenomena. If someone does not have this understanding, then second best is someone who has met face-to-face with a deity such as Manjusri. The poorest are those authors who are well
educated and only have a thorough knowledge of the five branches of the sciences (grammar, logic, craftsmanship, healing, and spirituality). Texts written by someone who doesn't have one of the above three qualifications aren't worthy of a Buddhist commentary. Maitreya, the author of the Uttara Tantra, is even better than the best category because not only did he possess realization of absolute truth, but he was a bodhisattva of the highest level.
The fourth point discusses how this work spread after Maitreya had given the teachings of the Uttara Tantra. Buddha Sakyamuni had actually made a prediction that
? there would be a teaching given by one of the highest bodhisattvas and it would relate to the highest possible meaning and these teachings would be given to men and propagated among them.
The Story o f Asanga
The story of the spread of the Uttara Tantra begins at the famous Buddhist University of NSlanda in India. The university was set on fire by heretics and many precious teachings were destroyed including most of the Abhidharma teachings. At that time a nun called Salwai Tsultim became very worried that the teachings would be lost. So she decided to have sons to allow the teachings to grpw and spread again. She had two sons: Asanga who became a proponent of the mahayana teachings and Vasubandhu who became an outstanding proponent of the hlnayUna teachings.
Asanga began by meditating very diligently on Maitreya. He practiced for three years and didn't seem to be getting any results. He became very depressed at not having accomplished anything in his meditation. So he left his retreat and on the way met a man who was rubbing a rock. He inquired and found that the man was rubbing the rock to get rid of it because the rock was blocking the sun from shining on his house. Asanga was so impressed by his perseverance that he decided to try again. He returned and meditated for 12 years and still did not feel he was getting anywhere with his meditation and became depressed again. He left his retreat and on the way he saw a dog which was
very sick and thin. The dog was very angry and ready to bite him. Suddenly, Asanga felt strong compassion for the
? dog because he noticed that the dog had worms in his wounds. He wanted to remove the worms to help the dog, but realized that if he pulled the worms off, he would kill them. It was a choice between killing the worms or leaving the worms on the dog which would cause the dog to die. But Asanga felt such strong compassion and felt that he must find a way to get the worms out. He thought, "If I take the worms off with my tongue, then the worms won't be hurt and the dog will get better. " So he leaned down and
stuck out his tongue; and as he touched the ground, Maitreya appeared before him. He saw Maitreya and exclaimed, "How is it possible! I have been practicing this meditation for 12 years and haven't been able to meet you. You really don't have much compassion for me. " Maitreya said, "It wasn't my lack of compassion. I was there the whole time but you couldn't see me because you had too many obscurations. After 12 years of practice, your obscurations had become so slight that when you saw the
dog, you were able to have compassion and to see me. " After their meeting, Maitreya and Asanga went to the Tusita buddha-field and there Maitreya gave teachings on the second turning to Asanga. From these teachings and especially the teachings of the Prajhdpdramita Asanga composed the Abhisamaydlankdra. Maitreya also gave teachings on the third turning with some related to the
relative meaning and some related to the absolute meaning of the dharma. Three teachings pertained to the relative meaning: the MahaydnasUtralankara, the Dharmatavib- hahga, and the Madhydntavibhanga. The teachings related to the absolute meaning of reality were the Abhisamayp<<- lankdra and the Uttara Tantra &stra. So Maitreya gave,, Asanga these five teachings and they were transmitted to
human beings of our world.
? The fifth point discusses the line of transmission of the Uttara Tantra. The teachings of Maitreya were transmitted in two lines--the words and the meaning. The Uttara Tantra was given to Asanga and he transmitted it to his brother Vasubandhu. Later Asanga wrote five works on the five transmissions from Maitreya to make Maitreya's teachings more accessible to everyone. His brother Vasubandhu also wrote commentaries on two of these five works of Maitreya. He wrote a commentary on the
Dharmatavibhanga and the Madhyantavibhahga.
Among these five teachings, three were disseminated quite widely. These were the Abhisamayalahkara, the Madhyantavibhariga, and the Mahayanasutralahkara and were transmitted by Vasubandhu to his disciple Dinnaga. DinnSga passed them to his disciple Lodro Tenpa who disseminated these teachings quite widely. The other two
teachings, the Uttara Tantra and the Dharmatavibhanga, were more profound and were given to only a few pupils.
In Tibet there were two periods of history in which the Buddhist teachings were widely spread. The earlier period during the eighth century at the time of King Thrisong Deutsen or the "time of the three," with the ":hree" being mahapandita Santaraksita, King Thrisong Deutsen, and Guru Padmasambhava. During this time these first three teachings of Maitreya were translated into Tibetan and disseminated widely. The two profound works were hidden treasures (Tib. terma2) and were hidden so that they were not known during this first period. Much later Maitripa,
one of Marpa's gurus, saw a stupa that was cracked and
^ Tibetan words in this text arc spelled as they are pronounced, not as they are spelled in Tibetan. Their Tibetan spelling can be found in Appendix A.
? from the stupa came a brilliant light. Maitripa became curious and found these two texts inside the crack. He found their meaning was so deep that he wasn't sure he understood them. So he prayed to Maitreya for blessings to understand these texts and Maitreya appeared to him and gave him the ritual reading (Tib. lung). After that reading Maitripa could understand the text clearly. These teachings were then passed on to many panditas or the great scholars in India.
Later these deeper teachings spread in Tibet. There were two main lines of transmission--the transmission of the words and the transmission of the meaning of the text. The words were transmitted mainly by Loden Sherab. He was a translator who went to a preeminently Muslim part of India where he received the teachings of the Uttara
Tantra and the Dharamatavibhaga and translated them into Tibetan. His approach followed that of the Madhyamaka school. At the same time there was another lama named Senka Uche who received the teachings of the Uttara Tantra from the Indian teacher, Guru Tsatsana. He meditated on it to understand its deep meaning and started the meditation transmission.
The main difference between the scholarly and the meditative approach is that in the meditative approach "voidness" is not understood as the absence of everything, but as containing the essence of Buddhahood. In the meditative approach, however, one meditates on the voidness as containing the essence of Buddha to
understand this concept. This tradition combined the theoretical material of the Uttara Tantra with meditation of. mahamudra. This tradition based on the . five teachings of Maitreya was passed on to the third Karmapa, Rangjung
? Doije. He wrote a short summary of the Uttara Tantra and through him the Uttara Tantra was transmitted to all the
main lamas of the Kagyu lineage. For example, this teaching was transmitted to the eighth Shamarpa Rinpoche, Chuji Dondrup, and to the eighth Tai Situpa Rinpoche, Chuji Jungne, and to Jamgon Kongtrul.
The sixth point concerns the subject matter of the Uttara Tantra. As mentioned before, the Buddha gave his teachings in three turnings of the wheel of dharma. All his teachings, however, have a similar root with the essential point being the absence of a "self. " Some religions believe that if one does what pleases God or the gods, then they
will be rewarded one and one will obtain greater happiness. They also believe that if one does something that goes against God or the gods, one will encounter misfortunes and fall into a lower realm. There is no such belief in the Buddhist teachings. What happens to one is not the result of pleasing or displeasing a god. The Buddha's teachings are based on the study of the nature of things, so when the nature of phenomena is completely understood, one has attained Buddhahood. If one does not understand the nature of things, one continues to live in conditioned existence (Skt. samsUra).
The key to all Buddhist teachings is the twofold absence of self and of phenomena. Normally, we believe that we are a separate "self' and this belief in a "self' arises from the idea of "I. " As soon as we think "I" or "myself," there develops the wish to keep this "I" happy and comfortable which gives rise to desire. We want to
provide that "I" with all the happiness we can find. Then when this "I" feels threatened, the threat generates anger. This "I" will also feel it is better and has better qualities
? than others and this will generate pride. If this "I" fears there are others who are as good or better, then jealousy will be generated. To summarize, as soon as there is this belief that the individual self has a reality, then all the five negative afflictions (Skt klefas) of desire, anger, aversion,
pride, and jealousy are generated. The belief in the existence of phenomena is a consequence of the first belief. When we believe we exist, then we also believe that all phenomena one experiences also exists.
The main point of Buddhist practice is to eliminate the belief of self and phenomena. The way to eliminate the belief in self is to investigate the location of the one who thinks "I am. " If one thinks "I," then who is thinking "I"? Then try to find this "I" somewhere. If one meditates on this and investigates it closely, one will not find anything that is called the "I. " Through this process one will understand the nonexistence of self. The belief in the
existence of phenomena which appears to be real and substantial is more difficult. But when one considers it more closely, one will begin to see that phenomena are very much like a bubble in water or a dream. All these things do not have any solid reality either.
To summarize, the main point of all three turnings of the wheel of dharma is to understand the nonexistence of self and of phenomena. The absence of a "self' is voidness (Sunyatfi), but this voidness is not to be misunderstood as blankness, a complete emptiness. It is not like empty space because empty space is frozen and no change can manifest from it. Sunyata has a different quality. This voidness is by nature clarity (Tib. salwa). Having the nature of clarity
means that when beings are still impure, all the various appearances of phenomena can manifest within this clarity.
? When individuals have eliminated their impurities, Buddhahood is manifested in clarity. Within this clarity the forms (Skt. kayas) of the Buddha and the activity of the Buddha can manifest. So this voidness is full of all these possibilities. For everything to manifest in the impure and the pure phase, this voidness must be indivisible from clarity. The clarity represents the very vivid intelligent aspect. So clarity and emptiness are completely united and the union of these two is the essence of all Buddhas and is present within the mind of all beings. If one can realize the unity of clarity and voidness, one can reach Buddhahood.
