Stéphane Arguillère (IFRAE / Inalco)
Much has been written about the debate on “emptiness-of-other,” “subitism” and “practice linages,”1 to the extent that some may have presented it as something that became central as early as the 14th century and remained so for the rest of Tibetan intellectual history. At some point, such an ideological device was constructed, but it actually became central as a commonly shared doxographical framework only in the nineteenth century with the “non-sectarian” (ris med) masters of eastern Tibet in their struggle for life against Gelug hegemony. In historical research, it is important to deconstruct false historiography—that is to say, to understand these late narratives as an ideological product of their own time, expressing the power games of that period, and basically irrelevant to the era we are studying.
In this later doctrinal construction, one witnesses a massive conflation of two completely unrelated issues: the Sakya polemic against subitism, on the one hand, and the (much later) Gelug denial of any “positive” aspects in the ultimate nature, on the other. Along with this conflation of two logically unrelated issues, another polemical boundary is fabricated: a distinction between the “practice lineages” (sgrub brgyud) and the “study lineages” (bshad brgyud). To summarize all this simply, the entire intellectual (and even spiritual) history of Tibet is fancifully portrayed and brutally simplified as a battlefield between only two camps: on the one hand there are the “practice lineages,” namely the Kagyüpas and the Nyingmapas (and perhaps all the other “red hat” schools), who are supposedly all subitists, partisans of the emptiness-of-other, and strong practitioners, and on the other hand there are the “study lineages,” namely the Gelugpas (the Sakyapas are presented in an ambiguous way), who are portrayed as dry intellectuals who hardly ever practice, are partisans of the “emptiness-of-self,” and gradualists.
It is a fact that Sakya Paṇḍita’s polemics2 target the Kagyüpas’ Mahāmudrā in a formula that also seems to blame the Nyingmapas, as it calls it “Chinese-style Dzogchen.”3 However, his anti-Mahāmudrā arguments are of three kinds. One is about the lack of real textual sources for such an approach. The Nyingmapas cannot be blamed for this, as they have a large canon of Dzogchen tantras, which is one among many important factors that distinguishes Dzogchen from Kagyü Mahāmudrā. For a supporter of neo-conservative orthodoxy such as Sakya Paṇḍita, the issue with the Nyingma lineages would then rather have been the authenticity of this literature in terms of Indian sources. However, for some reason,4 Sakya Paṇḍita does not discuss this aspect in that context, and his line of anti-Dzogchen arguments must not be confused with the anti-Mahāmudrā polemics, which do, nonetheless, take aim at Dzogchen too. The phrase “Chinese-style Dzogchen” can either be taken to mean that Dzogchen as such is a Tibetan outcome of Chan or perhaps that some have bent authentic Dzogchen in the direction of Chan ideas, which Sakya Paṇḍita rejects.
The second line of argumentation targeted by Sakya Paṇḍita’s treatise is about presenting this ultimate approach, Mahāmudrā, as being accessible without the tantric apparatus of empowerments, etc. This objection, which is relevant to Gampopa and his followers, is much less significant for the Nyingmapas, who generally practice Dzogchen on the basis of empowerments and specific texts they call tantras. The idea that ultimate nature can be accessed without any method is also present, of course, but perhaps this is what Sakya Paṇḍita calls “Chinese-style Dzogchen,” meaning that from his point of view there can be good and bad Dzogchen.
This brings us to the third point, which is the only one that could be linked, albeit rather artificially, to the “emptiness-of-other” question. Sakya Paṇḍita is definitely a strong gradualist, in the sense that he sees enlightenment as what Tibetan scholastics would call a “fruit of production,” (grub ’bras) something that results from causes and conditions: namely, the accumulations of merit and wisdom. Contrary to this assumption, the partisans of the “emptiness-of-other” understand it as something eternally pre-existing in ourselves, as our Buddha-nature. Enlightenment would then mean revealing this Buddha-nature.
Now, it is not at all in the context of his anti-Mahāmudrā polemic that Sakya Paṇḍita discusses the question of an eternally pre-enlightened Buddha nature, and it is only later authors who have amalgamated the two lines of arguments. Sakya Paṇḍita definitely rejects the idea that the accumulations of merit and wisdom do not need to be completed because they are originally present in our own essential nature5. On this particular point, he is probably addressing Lama Zhang.6 rather than Gampopa. And it is clear that, although he may not have been thinking of them, the Nyingmapas would be within the scope of the refutation, because if Dzogchen does not mean that all that is required for enlightenment is complete in our own nature, then it would mean nothing.
It must be understood, however, that the assumption that our own nature is always already perfect does not logically imply either the “emptiness-of-other” in any precise sense, nor does it imply subitism.
On the first side, unless we want to stretch the concept to the point where it no longer has a definite meaning, “emptiness-of-other” implies the assumption that this ever-perfect Buddha nature is empty of the phenomenal aspects of the empirical world and ordinary mind, but not of itself, which means that it is absolutely real in and of itself, albeit in a way that may be inconceivable. Ultimate reality is then understood as that which remains when all that does not withstand critical analysis has been refuted. Now it is clear that such a line of reasoning is never to be found in Nyingma literature: its tendency, when it philosophizes, is rather to go to the very extreme of Madhyamaka negative reasonings in Candrakīrti’s style and then, admittedly, to describe what is discovered in positive terms, but never ever to say that it is something real that is immune to reasoning about emptiness, as Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361), the inventor of the “emptiness-of-other,” would have it.
On the other side, Dolpopa is a very strong gradualist: he describes the path as a progressive purification of the two obscurations, achieved mainly through the two stages of higher tantric practice. For him, enlightenment is a “fruit of a suppression” or “of a privation” ( ’bral ’bras), not something that can be achieved by merely recognizing the ultimate nature in his own light. Therefore, in this respect as well, his teaching cannot be assimilated to either Kagyü Mahāmudrā or Nyingma Dzogchen.
As for the last ideological opposition to be deconstructed, that between “practice lineages” and “study lineages,” it obviously does not even deserve to be discussed. Of course, there is a historical tendency in all the countries where Buddhism has spread for it to become a mere object of pure scholarly discourse in monastic circles. But between two or more groups whose doctrines contain complete instructions for practice and an equally strong exhortation to apply them, to say that one is more meditation-oriented than the other can be at best a sociological fact, at worst a derogatory stereotype, but in no case is it relevant to describing the beliefs of either group.
- The full history of the fabrication of these amalgamations and stereotypes has not yet been written. The fact that they cannot be used as a frame of reference for serious history would not prevent them from being good objects of study for the historian. The purpose of inserting these explanations is merely to exorcise them so that we can appreciate the actual facts without the superimposition of irrelevant ideology. [↩]
- For the actual meaning of this controversy in its original context, see especially David Jackson 1994. Most of what follows is a summary of the analyzes presented in this book, except for the more application to rNying ma doctrines which is based on Arguillère 2007, pp. 214–287, which present arguments in the sense of the radical incompatibility of the doctrines of gZhan stong and rDzogs chen. [↩]
- rGya nag lugs kyi rdzogs chen la|… Sa skya paṇḍita 2006: p. 52. [↩]
- Political explanations of doctrinal debates should be avoided, because they explain away the debates instead of really explaining them: they do not take them seriously because they want to believe that what is really at stake is not openly stated in the texts. Genuine “charitable reading” implies that we do not presume to know better than the author what he really thinks, and especially that we do not do so out of conceptual laziness, deciding before examination that a debate is futile. In this particular case, Sa skya paṇḍita’s opposition to bKa’ brgyud teachings cannot be reduced to the very real divergent interests of the two schools or groups of schools at the time. He did not ignore the rNying ma pas although, from a political point of view, they certainly did not weight much in his time. Other passages of the sDom gsum rab dbye contain a strong charge against the rNying ma pas: for example, on the rNying ma classification of the tantras and the nine graded vehicles (Sa skya paṇḍita 2006, p. 63); on the next page, he refuses the idea that a ti yo ga is a vehicle or, in fact, anything other than ye shes. In ibid., p. 83, he seems to be attacking the gter ma tradition as a whole as something purely fantastic (gter nas byung ba’i glegs bam dang|…). [↩]
- It should be noted that this point occurs in a completely different part of the sDom gsum rab dbye (Sa skya paṇḍita 2006: p. 7 ff—the dharmadhātu is unconditioned and therefore is not “virtuous”) in a development altogether unconnected to the discussion about Mahāmudrā and maybe Dzogchen, and separated by 45 pages. Sa skya paṇḍita rejects the idea of a Buddha nature eternally endowed with all the attributes of perfect Buddhahood, and in this he would have rejected Dol po pa’s doctrine. However, he would have regarded it as merely philosophically wrong, and not as practically problematic, as Dol po pa did not in the least posit the possibility of direct enlightenment by a mere recognition of the ultimate nature through a path beyond the higher tantras with their four empowerments and two stages of practice. [↩]
- Bla ma Zhang brTson ’grus grags pa (1123–1193). This figure and the opposition of Sa skya paṇḍita to his doctrines is well documented in David Jackson 1994. [↩]