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East Asian Languages and Societies

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

2016

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

“If Apprehending Occurs, It Is Not The View” — Sakya Thinkers On The Madhyamaka View Of Freedom From Proliferations, Yaroslav Komarovski Jan 2016

“If Apprehending Occurs, It Is Not The View” — Sakya Thinkers On The Madhyamaka View Of Freedom From Proliferations, Yaroslav Komarovski

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The Sakya thinkers whose views were addressed in this paper are consistently in agreement regarding what freedom from proliferations is, how it is utilized in contemplative practice, and how it is located within the broader universe of non-tantric and tantric Buddhism. Freedom from proliferations is not an object, and transcends all categories of existence, nonexistence, etc. Consequently, it cannot be approached and described in the same way we understand and describe colors, tastes, ideas, etc. Yet, it is also not a nonexistent thing similar to rabbit horns and other types of falsely imagined phenomena. It can be realized, but only …


‘If Apprehending Occurs, It Is Not The View’: Sakya Thinkers On The Madhyamaka View Of Freedom From Proliferations, Yaroslav Komarovski Jan 2016

‘If Apprehending Occurs, It Is Not The View’: Sakya Thinkers On The Madhyamaka View Of Freedom From Proliferations, Yaroslav Komarovski

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

This paper addresses several key elements of Sakya thinkers’ approach to Madhyamaka, with the primary focus on their understanding of ultimate reality described as ‘freedom from proliferations’ (spros bral). It first provides a short summary of the general Sakya approach, then addresses works of several early Sakya masters, and finally explores writings of Gowo Rapjampa Sönam Senggé (go bo rab ’byams pa bsod nams seng ge, 1429-1489)— Gorampa (go rams pa) for short—whose position is accepted as representative of the mainstream within the Sakya tradition. Sakya thought in general, and its approach to Madhyamaka in particular, is based largely on …


From The Three Natures To The Two Natures: On A Fluid Approach To The Two Versions Of Other-Emptiness From 15th Century Tibet, Yaroslav Komarovski Jan 2016

From The Three Natures To The Two Natures: On A Fluid Approach To The Two Versions Of Other-Emptiness From 15th Century Tibet, Yaroslav Komarovski

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

In recent years there has been a surge of scholarly interest in diverse systems of Buddhist thought and practice that Tibetan thinkers characterize as “other-emptiness” (gzhan stong), contrasting them with systems of “self-emptiness” (rang stong). While the theories of such exponents of other emptiness as Dölpopa Sherap Gyeltsen (dol po pa shes rab rgyal mtshan, 1292–1361)1 are relatively well known, those of other Tibetan thinkers are only beginning to receive scholarly attention. This paper addresses one such lesser-known other-emptiness theory that was developed by the seminal Tibetan thinker Serdok Penchen Shakya Chokden (gser …