In this book, Yaroslav Komarovski argues that the Tibetan Buddhist interpretations of the realization of ultimate reality both contribute to and challenge contemporary interpretations of unmediated mystical experience. The model used by the majority of Tibetan Buddhist thinkers states that the realization of ultimate reality, while unmediated during its actual occurrence, is necessarily filtered and mediated by the conditioning contemplative processes leading to it, and Komarovski argues that therefore, in order to understand this mystical experience, one must focus on these (...) processes, rather than on the experience itself. Komarovski also provides an in-depth comparison of seminal Tibetan Geluk thinker Tsongkhapa and his major Sakya critic Gorampa's accounts of the realization of ultimate reality, demonstrating that the differences between these two interpretations lie primarily in their conflicting descriptions of the compatible conditioning processes that lead to this realization. Komarovski maintains that Tsongkhapa and Gorampa's views are virtually irreconcilable, but demonstrates that the differing processes outlined by these two thinkers are equally effective in terms of actually attaining the realization of ultimate reality. Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Experience speaks to the plurality of mystical experience, perhaps even suggesting that the diversity of mystical experience is one of its primary features. (shrink)

This paper explores Shakya Chokden's approach to the philosophical dimensions of the tantric path. In particular, it explores how his philosophical ideas inform his interpretation of several stages of the Guhyasamāja practice with references to the generation stage ( bskyed rim ) and the completion stage ( rdzogs rim ). Shakya Chokden's interpretive approach involves four interrelated points: all ultimate and relative phenomena are mind-made; tantric practice is based on the other-emptiness view of reality as jñāna ; conceptuality envisioning tantric (...) maṇḍalas is destroyed by—not transformed into—the non-conceptual jñāna manifesting them; and visions of maṇḍalas cultivated on the tantric path eventually arise from and appear to jñāna itself. The paper addresses all four, with the focus on the last claim, which is the most complicated feature of Shakya Chokden's approach. (shrink)

Shakya Chokden's approach consists of reducing all phenomena to mind and its appearances, and then negating dualistic minds as illusory and nonexistent and establishing the non-dual jñāna transcending them as the only phenomenon existent in reality—the primordial tathāgatagarbha with all buddha-qualities complete. For him, this interpretation of tathāgatagarbha is indispensable for tantric contemplative practice and for explaining how and why that practice works. The initial identification of tathāgatagarbha as the primordially existent jñāna endowed with buddhaqualities serves as the foundation for (...) conceptually envisioning deities of the ultimate body-maṇḍala and eventually, when enough clarity is achieved, directly perceiving them by jñāna itself. Further cultivation of that self-cognizing jñāna displaying Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala takes the practitioner through the stages of the tantric path to the eventual achievement of buddhahood qualified by the full manifestation and vision of buddha-qualities from within and by jñāna. (shrink)

In Luminous Emptiness, Yaroslav Komarovski offers an annotated translation of three seminal works on the nature and relationship of Yogacara and Madhyamaka, by Serdok Penchen Shakya Chokden.

Chapters 4–9 are the most important part of the book. Here Liberman displays his interpretive skills to the fullest. He explores various aspects of directly observed, live debate processes, drawing on the work of Schutz, Husserl, Durkheim (to mention just a few), as well as Buddhist thinkers Nagarjuna, Sakya Pandita, Tsongkhapa, and others. Liberman exhaustively explains the organization and mechanics of debates, the public nature of reasoning, negative dialectics employed by debaters, strategies and techniques such as absurd consequences, hand-claps, ridicule, (...) and repetition, and other matters. (shrink)

The rich and interconnected universe of Śākya Mchog Ldan’s views, including those on the buddha-essence, cannot be limited to or summarized in a few neat categories. Nevertheless, the following two interrelated ideas are crucial for understanding Śākya Mchog Ldan’s interpretation of the buddha-essence: 1) only Mahāyāna āryas (’phags pa) have the buddha-essence characterized by the purity from adventitious stains (glo bur rnam dag).

This reconciliation of the dialectical and contemplative approaches to the buddha-essence is related to and closely resembles Shakchok’s reconciliation of the two approaches to ultimate reality advocated respectively by Niḥsvabhāvavāda (ngo bo nyid med par smra ba, “Proponents of Entitylessness”) system of Madhyamaka and Alīkākāravāda (rnam rdzun pa, “False Aspectarians”) system of Yogācāra. These approaches in turn are connected respectively to the explicit teachings (dngos bstan) of the second dharmacakra (chos ’khor, “Wheel of Dharma”) and the definitive teachings (nges don, (...) nītārtha) of the third dharmacakra that he also presents in a reconciliatory manner. In the same way as the teachings of the last two dharmacakras, as well as the Niḥsvabhāvavāda and Alīkākāravāda systems that derive from them, come to the same point, the dialectical and contemplative traditions also come to the same point. This point is the above-mentioned naturally pure primordial mind luminous by nature, the ultimate reality. In Shakchok’s opinion, application of non-affirming negations is a powerful tool for accessing direct realization of that reality, while its identification as primordial mind (ye shes, jñāna) is important for maintaining that realization and turning it into the basis of unfolding positive qualities on the path to buddhahood. When in the passage above Shakchok says that the two traditions are not contradictory, and when he reconciles the two last dharmacakras together with Alīkākāravāda and Niḥsvabhāvavāda, he is not arguing that their words are non-contradictory. They obviously are! Nevertheless, those systems are non-contradictory in terms of complementing each other in getting access to and maintaining realization of the ultimate reality of primordial mind. (shrink)