Reviews the book The Buddha Within

·期刊原文
Reviews the book The Buddha Within
by HookHam, S.K.
Reviewed by David Need
Philosophy East & West
Vol.43 No.3
Jul. 1993
Pp.585-588
Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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In The Buddha Within, Dr. S. K. Hookham reworks her
dissertation (Oxford, 1986) outlining the Shentong[1]
tradition in Tibet and its view of ultimate reality.
"Shentong" (gzhan stong, other-empty) is a term used in Tibet
to refer to a view of ultimate reality as a wisdom
consciousness empty or free of the illusory phenomena of
conditioned existence. Such a view owes heavily to the
description of ultimate reality in the Tathaga-tagarbha
Sutras and in the tantras. One of the earliest proponents of
this view was the Jo-nang-pa scholar, Dolpopa Shetab Gyaltsen
(dol-po-pa shes-rab rgyal-mtshan, 1292-1361), whose massive
study titled The Mountain Dharma: An Ocean of Definitive
Meaning (rl chos nges don rgya mtsho) outlined this doctrine,
extensively citing from sutra and tantra in support of his
position. The Shentong position advanced by Dolpopa and later
by such figures as the seventh Karmapa (1454-1506), the Sakya
scholar, Sakya Chogden (gser-mdog-pan-chen Sakya mchog-ldan,
14281507), and most recently by one of the founders of the
Rimay (ris med, nonsectarian) movement of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries? ]amgon Kontrol Lodro Thayay (jam-mgon
kong-sprul blo-gros mtha'-yas, 1813-1899), was the object of
sustained critique by scholars of other schools-notably those
of the Geluk-pa traditions who advanced what is called a
"rangtong" (rang stong, self-empty) view of ultimate reality.
These scholars held the ultimate truth to be an existent
object of knowledge cognized by a wisdom consciousness. Such
an object of a wisdom consciousness is held to be a
nonaffirming negative--the absence of the inherent existence
of any given phenomena, most importantly the self. Shentong
advocates argue that this view of ultimate reality fails to
account adequately for the qualities associated with a
Buddha's wisdom, although it does account for the nature of
illusory phenomena.

The political upheaval in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries that led to the ascendency of the Geluk-pa
tradition and to the establishment of the Fifth Dalai Lama's
government also brought with it the eventual censoring of the
Shentong position. The literature of Shentong advocates was
banned, and wood blocks and extant texts were seized and
destroyed or sequestered. While these actions seem to have
been politically motivated,[3] the effect was the partial
silencing of an important and vital stream of interpretation
and thought. Dr. Hookham expressly indicates that she has
published her work in order to bring this tradition to light,
noting that, until now, most Western academic works on
Tibetan Buddhist views of ultimate reality have used Geluk-pa
sources and hence have not presented a fair account of this
alternate tradition.

Dr. Hookham's book is broken into three sections. Using a
doxo-graphical outline provided her by a modern Kagyu lama,
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, [4] Hookham first outlines the
particulars of the debate between the Rangtong and Shentong
traditions on several key issues: (1) the meaning of
emptiness, (2) the nature of the Buddha's wisdom, (3) the
necessity to determine ultimate reality through faith and
direct experience rather than reason, (4) how to interpret
Tathagatagarbha Sutra teachings on the presence of Buddha
Nature in all beings, and (5) how to determine definitive and
interpretable passages in the sutras (the neyartha-nitartha
controversy) . Following this largely philosophical
discussion, Hook-ham then presents a brief history of the
Shentong tradition and an outline of the textual history of
the Ratnagotravibhaga and its commentary, the Vakhya. This
text has become the focus of many of the debates concerning
the final nature of reality; indeed, it is generally held to
be a pivotal text linking together sutra and tantra views on
this matter. The final section of Hookham's work presents a
Shentong interpretation of this text and a brief translation
of the introduction to Jamgon Kontrul's nineteenth-century
commentary.

Hookham's approach is broad and covers a wealth of issues
ranging from textual histories to features of doctrine such
as the tathagatagarbha, gotra, and Buddhajnana. In the course
of her discussion she frequently makes interesting asides.
One such was a subtle distinction offered by Dolpopa who
emphasized that despite the tantric teaching that
conventional and ultimate truths were inseparable, "what the
practitioner thinks he experiences is mostly false (samvrti).
His/her task is to gain confidence in the true essence of
his/her experience... so that samvrti (false) appearances
fall away" (p. 87). She feels that many modern practitioners
err in believing they should meditate on the illusory
apparent world as inseparable with the ultimate truth, rather
than meditate on their true self-nature.

While these issues are important and her discussion of each
point interesting, Hookham was not effective in linking
different topics together or in summarizing individual
sections. This is partly due to the fact that her discussion
calls on the arguments of a wide range of scholars. She
generally does not supply information about the context for a
given remark, and yet the implicit content of a remark often
leads her to bring up secondary or subsidiary issues that,
while interesting, require more detail or background, and
draw us away from the thrust of her point. Hence, while it is
clear that she is aware of many interesting issues, such as
the relationship of the language of tantric accounts of
ultimate reality to that of sutra, we do not always get a
clear sense of how this relates to the issue at hand. A
related problem comes from Hookham's decision to present
philosophical material first and then to outline the history
of the figures of the Shentong tradition. We are introduced
to figures haphazardly, and the historical background does
not inform her discussion of the philosophical issues.

Nor are we given sufficient insight into the philosophical
contexts of certain remarks. Rather, scholars tend to be
collapsed as either Rangtong or Shentong adherents, while the
contexts that informed their respective remarks and the
intuitions to which they respond remain unexplored. Not
surprisingly, given Hookham's use of doxography and her
stated aim, her treatment of the Rangtong position, and in
particular the Geluk-pa tradition, is not always extensive
enough, but rather are "served up" in counterpoint to the
Shentong position. See, for instance, her extremely general
assessment of the Rangtong view about truth as "a truth about
something else" (p. 79). Hookham indicates that she worked
with a number of contemporary Tibetan scholars, and her
discussion reflects "inhouse" assessments of Tibetan history
and thought. One such is the rather general distinction drawn
between "religious" and "rational" approaches to Buddhism, a
distinction often made by modern Shentong teachers to
valorize their tradition's emphasis on direct experience and
faith.

Similar objections are often--fairly--directed at Geluk-pa
presentations and doxographical accounts. Hence, I do not
mean to single Hookham out on this score. Scholarship on
Tibetan Buddhism seems to reflect the views of one's sources,
and these sources usually invoke heuristic distinctions that
do not do justice to the positions of their opponents,! would
argue that we should strive to find ways to discuss these
systemic differences so as to explore key moves and the
intuitions for which they account, rather than to promote
uncritically and perhaps unconsciously the polemics of the
figures we study.

Hookham's work also suffers from her use of "conventions."
Throughout the book she uses a set of Sanskrit and Tibetan
terms without italicizing these and without diacritics (save
in the index) and, in the case of the Tibetan terms, in an
unconventional phoneticized form. Some of these are fairly
standard, such as "bodhisattva," or "tantra." Others, such as
nisprapanca (non-elaborated, pure), would have been handled
better either as a foreign word, or with a translation
equivalent. While she does offer a glossary for these terms,
the respective glosses are brief and not particularly
informative. For instance, for dhatu, she states, "element:
often in the sense of an open expanse or the expanse of
emptiness and wisdom inseparable" (p. 364). These terms are
inconsistently used, sometimes standing on their own,
sometimes offered in brackets following an English
equivalent, and sometimes followed by an English gloss. See
above, where within the space of one sentence we have both
"false (samvrti)" and "samvrti (false)." Some terms appear as
either adjectives of nouns, the most egregious instance of
this tendency being the use of nisprapanca--for which she
gives an extensive gloss and then a provisional
translation--as both noun and adjective: she speaks of "the
nisprapanca object of nisprapanca awareness," but also speaks
of "an important discussion of nisprapanca" (pp. 69 and 77).
In addition, her attempt to coin certain Tibetan terms such
as "mayingag" (ma yin dgag, affirming negation) , was
disturbing. Her first use of such a term--that of "gagshi"
(dgag gzhi, basis of refutation)--went unglossed and lacked
any direction to the glossary. I found the use of these
"conventions" distracting and disorganized, often making her
point opaque. In addition, it would have been helpful to have
all her conventions explained at one place at the beginning
of the book rather than in appendixes and scattered
throughout the text.

Dr. Hookham's book is to be celebrated for its presentation
of a previously censored view of ultimate reality in Tibetan
Buddhism, one that has a long tradition and many advocates.
Her treatment of the many themes shows considerable
familiarity with the key issues in the Tibetan debates.
Still, the scope and organization undermine her effort. This
is too bad, for the material she hopes to share with us
raises important questions as to Buddhist views on practice
and liberation. One hopes that her work will spark further
studies.

Notes

1. Throughout this review, I follow Hookham's
phoneticization for the terms Shentong and rangtong, as
well as for the names of figures in the Shentong
tradition.

2. For an outline of the history of the Rimay movement, see
Gene Smith, Introduction to the Index of Kong sprul's
Encyclopedia of Indo-Tibetan Culture, ed. Lokesh Chandra
(New Delhi, 1970).

3. For these comments, I thank Matthew Kapstein, who has
recently brought back a copy of the complete works of
Dolpopa from a journey into Amdo and is preparing an
introduction and catalog for that set.

4. See Tsultrim Gyamtso, Khenpo, Progressive Stages of
Meditation on Emptiness, trans. Shenpen Zangmo (Oxford:
Longchen Foundation, 1986).