Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that (...) is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self. The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one’s “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one’s own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. (shrink)

In modern Buddhist scholarship, J. Takasaki’s English and Japanese translations of the Ratnagotravibhāga in 1966 and 1989 have been read as an exemplary one until now without any meaningful revision. This paper critically reviews his translations of the twenty-seventh verse in the first chapter of the work, which explicates the key doctrine in the Tathāgatagarbha thought that every living being is a tathāgatagarbha. The method is to clarify the ambiguity of expressions appeared in the verse by changing its nominal style (...) into a general one. After resolving the problems that occur due to vague phrasing, it attempts to investigate the doctrine on the basis of the concepts of buddhakāya, tathatā and gotra, which respectively consist in the first, the second, and the third pāda of the twenty-seventh verse. This paper, thus, provides a new translation of the verse: “Since the Buddha’s wisdom is inherent in all living beings; since the immaculateness of living beings and that of the Buddha are essentially non-dual; and since a buddha is figuratively expressed to be the effect of the buddha-nature with which all living beings are endowed; all body-possessors [=living beings] are by their nature buddhas.”. (shrink)

The Chinese word “bukong” 不空 appearing in the Āgama texts is a rendering of Pāli words such as aritta (not discarded), asuñña (not empty), amogha (not vain). Whereas the Madhyamika texts never affirm the term non‐empty as a counterpart of the concept emtpy, the Yogācāra texts overlay it with a slightly negative connotation as a false imagination. However, Tathāgatagarbha thought affirms that term positively, and Chinese strands of Buddhism further adopt it as an absolute affirmation by identifying emptiness with non‐emptiness, (...) thereby turning the concept of mutual dependence or counterpart into that of mutual identification. In the Huayan jing, the concepts such as aśūnya, aśūnyatā, amogha, amoghatā are equally rendered as “bukong”, and this term thus comes to have a wide range of meanings including non‐empty, without any errors, beneficial, not deluded, or fully endowed with wisdom and compassion, and so on, which are attributes of tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, we see that the Huayan jing has such diverse meaning in the word “bukong” in according to the context. In the case of the typical Chinese Buddhist text Dasheng qixin lun, “bukong” indicates the state in which the pure dharmas are fulfilled. It seems that this text regards the essence as empty while considering the function to be non‐empty. When we contemplate on the meanings of “bukong” appearing in the Huayan jing, we may say that this scripture played a role of bridging Indian Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism. In particular, the comparisons of the meanings of “bukong” in the scriptures and treatises will reveal the affirmative spirit of the Chinese Buddhists, which is implicit in Indian Mahāhyāna Buddhism. 『아함경』에서 ‘不空’이라 한역된 원어는 Pā. aritta(버려지지 않은), asuñña(비어 있지 않은), amogha(헛되지 않은) 등이다. 중관에서는 공의 상대(相待)인 불공을 절대 부정하는 반면, 유식에서는 허망 분별로 인한 부정적인 이미지가 살짝 보이다가 여래장 사상이 도입되면서 긍정적인 이미지로 전환하는데, 그것이 중국불교에서는 절대 긍정으로 바뀌어서 ‘空即不空’인 상의상즉(相依相卽)의 의미로 공과 분리가 불가능해진다. 『화엄경』에서는 ‘不空’이란 역어가 Skt. aśūnya, aśūnyatā, amogha, amoghatā로, 그 의미가 어리석지 않은 지혜와 자비가 충만한 여래장의 뜻으로 무한히 펼쳐져서 불공이란 꽃이 활짝 핀다. 이렇게 불공은 문맥에 따라 그 의미가 다르나, 중국불교의 전형적인 논인 『기신론』에서는 정법(淨法)이 만족스러우면 ‘불공’이라 하면서, 체(體)가 공이고 용(用)이 불공이라고 말하는 것으로 보인다. ‘不空’이라는 역어만을 놓고 대조해 본다면, 초기불교 경전인 『아함경』에서의 불공의 의미가 『화엄경』에서 되살아나는 듯하여 『화엄경』이 인도불교와 중국불교의 가교역할을 한다고 감히 추정할 수 있는데, 특히 경론에서 불공의 의미만 가지고 비교한다면, 『화엄경』에는 인도 대승불교 속에 자연스레 녹아 있는 긍정적인 중국 불자들의 마음이 엿보인다. (shrink)

Buddhism enthusiasts that the tathAgatagarbha sources were themselves aware of the criticism that they simply taught an Atman in the same way that non- Buddhists did, and they rejected this accusation and defended themselves against the ...

In China, Xiong Shili 熊十力 is typically regarded as one of the most important Chinese philosophers of the twentieth century. The focus of this paper is Xiong’s monistic ontology and draws its findings principally from the 1932 literary edition of his New Treatise on Nothing but Consciousness. Xiong’s New Treatise is the first substantive attempt to respond to the modernist challenge of providing Chinese philosophy with ‘system,’ and he did this in the form of an ontology. The New Treatise consists (...) of an interpretive summary and discussion of key Yogācāra teachings that feature in Cheng weishi lun; a sustained critique of views Xiong attributes to the sixth-century Yogācāra master Dharmapāla; and a synthesis of Yogācāra thought with ideas derived from Madhyamaka Buddhism, various Sinitic traditions of Buddhism, the Book of Change, Laozi and Zhuangzi, and from Chinese Neo-Confucian thinkers associated with the Lu-Wang wing of Neo-Confucian philosophy, as well as Zhu Xi. Xiong was very much a syncretist. I seek to explain why Xiong insisted that reality cannot be sought independent of phenomena despite his also claiming that phenomena are not real. The first and major part of the paper introduces Xiong’s critique of Yogācāra accounts of consciousness. The second part introduces his understanding of the doctrine of emptiness. I also trace the connection between Xiong’s understanding and how the concept of emptiness was understood in Tathāgatagarbha school of Sinitic Buddhism. I do not address the Confucian elements in his thought—the Buddhist elements are complex enough. (shrink)

This study deals with the tensions between old and new Yogācāra, as seen in the Huayan sources, which, in turn, reflect discontinuity between Indian Yogācāra and its reception in China. Its particular focus is on the concept of karmic appearance , as developed in the Awakening of Faith and further elaborated on by many Huayanmasters. This concept illustrates the sudden arising of deluded thoughts and provides us with a paradigm for the approach to the problem of delusion, a problem that (...) is deeply rooted in Tathāgatagarbha Thought and addresses the origin of deluded thoughts against the backdrop of the pure mind. This Huayan solution resembles the concept of free will, as developed in mainstream Christian theology after Augustine attempted to solve the problem of evil, and the concept of playfulness found in Indian Vedānta theology to explain the creation of the illusory world. (shrink)

This paper mainly discusses Tan Luan Amitabha created the theory of the nature of salvation. Gein Tan Luan force first proposed trust him, and so as "easy street" and "hard track" distinction, this emphasis on his ability to say, and the traditional Buddhist emphasis on self-liberation is different, each being misunderstood as a Buddhist heresy; but the two kinds of Tan Luan body of law that, on the one hand Chengji Long said the tree two more from the thinking Bian (...) air to the pursuit of Wisdom of Buddha there is generally on the one hand, Cheng Jishi body of law and other pro-flow Buddha body theory, more deepen its Tathagatagarbha ideas for his theory of Amitabha Buddha body exercise through the Mahayana concept of the base and refined with the lies. In addition, Tan Luan "two kinds of bodies of law," the body of law that seems, and Tan Luan - Dao Chao - Sin a series of Pure Land teaching "is the reported non-" of saying different things, but in reality he was a unique dialectic of the "two" terms, indicating Amitabha in San secular representations in two ambiguities, including: self-reliance - his strength, name - for example, the law of the body of law - convenient body of law, etc., and from beyond all relative to the Absolute Dharmakaya Amitabha concept, derived symbol of the Buddha-bit cell of the surface to his power, the willing, the body is good diversion Amitabha's report said the pilot. In the history of Pureland-Buddhism, Tan Luan is the first one who claims to rely on the force of Buddha, and divides Buddhism into two patterns-the easy way vs. The difficult way. The notion of his power is different from the main principle of Buddhism, and always misunderstanded as betrayer. But if we analyze the theory of Tan Luan, we can find two dimensions. In one side, he succeeds the idea of ​​two-kaya from N? g? rjuna, but his notion of? unya is more near Buddha-nature. On the other side, he succeeds the idea of ​​the emanatuon of dharma-k? ya from Vasubandhu, but more inclines to tathagata-garbha thought. So we can say, Tan Luan's theory of the force of Amita-Buddha is rooted on the tradition of Amita-Buddha is rooted on the tradition of Mahayana-Buddhism, and it is exactly the prototype of the Buddha-k? ya. Besides this, in the theory of Tan Luan's two -dharmak? ya, the term of dharmakaya Buddha is looked different to the doctrine of the series that he belongs. But he uses many dialectic terms of two-k? ya, such as: self-power-other power, Name of Buddha - For example, the law of the body of law - convenient body of law, and so on, in order to explain the duality of Amita-Buddha as the Absolute One appears himself between the sacred and the profane. And from the notion of the Absolute dharma-k? ya of Amita -Buddha, the side of the Buddha's personal character, such as the force, vow, and so on, is developed. In fact, his theory of Amita-Buddha is nothing but the pioneer of the theory of samboghak? ya Amita-Buddha in the series of Shandau. (shrink)

In the various texts the phrase “something does not exist there” was interpreted in the following way: “elephants, cows, etc.” (Cūlasuññata-sutta) “the imagined, or conceptualized” (Yogācāra tradition), “the five skandhas, the elements, the sensory fields as eternal and solid entities” (Abhidharmasamuccaya), “all conventional phenomena” (Dolpo-pa), “inherent reality” (rGyal-tshab-rje), “accidental pollution with regard to the tathāgatagarbha (Gung-thang). The phrase “something that remains there does exist as a real existent” was interpreted also in different ways: “monks, palace, world, etc” (Cūlasuññata-sutta), “the perfect, (...) or accomplished” (Yogācāra tradition), “the Selflessness” (Abhidharmasamuccaya), “the perfect, emptiness exists eternally” (Dol-po-pa), “the lack of inherent reality” (rGyal-tshab-rje), “the purity of tathāgatagarbha 's nature” (Gung-thang).This survey shows that the Buddhist tradition interpreted the same scriptural sentence in radically different ways. Each commentator attempted to present the scriptural statement in a way which suited best his own philosophical view. It is evident that no agreement with regard to the exegesis of this sentence can be obtained. After all, the Buddha has set up a model in the (Cūlasuññata-sutta), where he interpreted the statement in a process-manner. There is no definitive description of voidness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Dialogue:Looking Back, Looking Ahead, and Listening Ever More DeeplySallie B. KingI was asked to give a brief overview of the subject of the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, looking back over its history and looking ahead to its future. I begin with two caveats. First, of necessity, this account will be very general and I will paint with a very broad brush. I cannot speak to the many variations and exceptions (...) to many, if not all, of the general statements that I make. Second, inevitably, this account will also be very subjective. It will especially be colored by my visits in recent years to Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Taiwan.the dialogue on religious thoughtLooking back over the history of the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, one notices a pattern that is regularly remarked upon: Christians show a lot more interest in dialogue with Buddhists than Buddhists show in dialogue with Christians. This is especially the case with respect to dialogue regarding each other’s religious thought.1 Sometimes Christians observe this fact with dismay, or with the implication that there is something wrong with the Buddhist side because of this lack of interest. There is a sense among some Christians that Buddhists should be more interested in learning from Christianity on the level of religious thought. I would like to address this idea that Buddhists should be more interested in learning from Christianity on the level of religious thought.First, several people have noted that the place and function of religious thought in Buddhism are rather different than their place and function in Christianity. For example, as Rita Gross has pointed out, some forms of Buddhist meditation have no reference to Buddhist thought at all—especially some Theravada practices such as mindfulness and choiceless awareness—whereas neither she (at least, at that time) nor I can think of any Christian meditation that doesn’t reference God or Jesus.2Again, Rita Gross has stated that for Christians to take at least some Buddhist thoughts and practices seriously, they needn’t give up necessarily any of their own fundamental doctrinal commitments, whereas the reverse is not the case.3 That is, a [End Page 7] Buddhist who wanted to take Christian thought seriously would almost immediately come face-to-face with Christianity’s theism. They likely would be unable to proceed, since accepting theism would require them to forego the whole edifice of Buddhist thought.Here I must demur. It is true that Christianity’s theism and Buddhism’s nontheism give fundamentally different foundations to their respective worldviews. But surely there are some elements of Christian thought and practice that Buddhists could absorb from Christianity without a fundamental reorientation. Some examples of ideas in Christianity that seem unthreatening to the foundations of Buddhism, yet potentially growth-inspiring for Buddhism in dialogue, come readily to mind. For example, as the relative place of laypeople shifts within modernizing Buddhism, a great deal might be learned from Christian thought on church and community. Again, Christian thought that contemplates realization of the Kingdom of God here and now might be of interest to those Taiwanese Buddhists who speak of a “Pure Land on Earth.” Even in the (semi-)ontological area, Christian thought on Spirit or pneuma might make for a potentially enriching dialogical partner for Buddhists, with their ideas on Buddha nature, Tathagatagarbha and Dharmakaya. The two sets of thinking on Natural Law could be a place of mutual learning. And many of the parables of Jesus have the power to cause people to see things in a new way, regardless of world-view. There is much that Buddhists could absorb from Christians while maintaining their basic worldview. Yet it remains true that it is hard to see much evidence of Buddhists absorbing anything substantial from Christian religious thought.I think that at this point in the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, we can say that the Buddhists have voted with their feet. Buddhist dialoguers are not ignorant of Christian religious thought. There have been some rather deep Buddhist studies, for example, of Jesus and of Christian mystics.4 However, it seems clear that they haven’t, as a rule, found anything there that has... (shrink)

This chapter sheds new light on the interaction between Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism by exploring and comparing the thoughts of the ninth century Huayan-Chan Buddhist Zongmi 宗密 and the twentieth century Neo-Confucian Mou Zongsan 牟宗三. It reveals the structural parallel between their opposing theories: both hold a doctrine of true mind as the central component, and both are influenced by the tathāgatagarbha 如來藏 doctrine of The Awakening of Faith. The former uses them to synthesize Huayan and Chan Buddhist soteriology; the (...) latter assimilates them into his framework of Neo-Confucian moral metaphysics. Seen as a response to Zongmi’s criticism of Confucian metaphysics in general, and the shortcomings of the mandate of heaven and the lack of causal theory in particular, Mou stresses the universality of the Confucian Dao, which is supported by the Song Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi’s unified ontological principle. Rather than appealing to the mandate of heaven, Mou makes clear in following Wang Yangming that the Confucian Dao can be manifested by the sage through his infinite intellectual mind, which is immanent in every human being, so as to solve the problem of the highest good without postulating a transcendent god nor appealing to the karmic causality. Mou’s response, supplemented by other Neo-Confucian theories such as Xiong Shili’s and Tang Junyi’s, is a prominent example of how Confucian tradition meets the challenge of Chinese Buddhism while absorbing Buddhist influence. However, the author also points out that Mou’s Neo-Confucian philosophy provides a possibility of defending Chinese Buddhism in face of the critique raised by Critical Buddhism. (shrink)

Huayan Buddhism is regarded as one of the most philosophical schools of Chinese Buddhism, representing the elite-scholar Buddhism under the Tang Dynasty. Its vision of truth is based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, the scripture that Huayan masters studied, explained, and commented intensively throughout their lives. This was the common vocation of these monks, which gradually created a lineage of the Huayan tradition, a succession of exegetes who believed that the Avatamsaka Sutra was the consummate teaching of Buddha preached directly after (...) his enlightenment under the bodhi tree. Although the base text of Huayan Buddhism was the Avatamsaka Sutra, classified as the round or perfect teaching in the classification of doctrines (panjiao), other teachings, such as Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and Tathāgatagarbha had exerted a great influence on the way Huayan scholars apprehended and interpreted this Mahāyāna scripture. In this article, we are going to discuss how Yogācāra philosophy was evaluated in the context of Huayan Buddhism, how the Huayan masters classified the consciousness-only teachings, and finally how they applied this philosophy in revealing the purport of the inline image, formulating its own distinctive school, the round teaching of one vehicle. (shrink)

Prof. Matsumoto Shirō and his colleague, Prof. Hakamaya Noriaki, have together produced a number of lengthy essays on a theme called hihan bukkyō (批判仏教), in English, "Critical Buddhism."1 At the core of their project is the conviction that the concepts of tathāgatagarbha and innate enlightenment (本覺思想) are alien to Buddhism, due to the fact that those concepts imply a belief in a hypostasized self--a type of atman, which Buddhism originally and distinctively sought to refute through the conceptual framework of pratītya-samutpāda (...) (dependent origination). (shrink)

This dissertation argues that the Yogâcāra Buddhism transmitted by the Indian translator Paramârtha (Ch. Zhendi 真諦) underwent a significant transformation due to the influence of his later Chinese interpreters, a phenomenon to which previous scholars failed to paid enough attention. I begin with showing two contrary interpretations of Paramârtha’s notion of jiexing 解性. The traditional interpretation glosses jiexing in terms of “original awakening” (benjue 本覺) in the Awakening of Faith and hence betrays its strong tie to that text. In contrast, (...) a contrary interpretation of jiexing is preserved in a Dunhuang fragment Taishō No. 2805 (henceforth abbreviated as T2805). The crucial part of this dissertation consists in demonstrating that T2805 and the Awakening of Faith represent two competing lineages of the interpreters of Paramârtha. The first clue is that modern scholars have voiced objection to the traditional attribution of the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha. In addition, I discovered that striking similarities exist between T2805 and Paramârtha’s corpus with respect to terminology, style of phrasing, and doctrine. I further draw attention to the historical testimonies about two different doctrinal views held by Paramârtha’s interpreters. Therefore, I argue that there were two lineages in the name of Paramârtha’s disciples around 590 CE: the indirect lineage interpreted Paramârtha through the lens of the Awakening of Faith; and the direct lineage—represented by T2805—preserved Paramârtha’s original teachings but died out prematurely. Later Chinese Buddhist tradition mistakenly regards the indirect lineage as Paramârtha’s true heir and attributes the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha. This implies that Paramârtha may have agreed with Xuanzang 玄奘 (600-664) much more than scholars used to assume. For example, Xuanzang’s characterization of the notion of “aboriginal uncontaminated seeds” looks very similar to how Paramârtha depicts jiexing. It also implies that we should distinguish the strong sense of the notion of “tathāgatagarbha” in the Awakening of Faith from its weak sense. The fact that even Vasubandhu endorses the weak sense of “tathāgatagarbha” strongly challenges the received wisdom that Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha were two distinct and antagonistic trends of thought in India. (shrink)

Leading East Asian Buddhist thinkers of the seventh century compared, analyzed, and finalized seminal epistemological and soteriological issues that had been under discussion in India and East Asia for centuries. Among the many doctrinal issues that came to the fore was the relationship between the Tathagatagarbha understanding of the human psyche and the view of basic karmic indeterminacy articulated by the new stream of Indian Yogacara introduced through the translations and writings of Xuanzang and his disciples. The great Silla (...) scholiast Wonhyo, although geographically located on the periphery in the Korean peninsula, was very much at the center of the intense discussion and debate that occurred on these topics. Through the force of his writings, he became one of the most influential figures in resolving doctrinal discrepancies for East Asian Buddhism. Although many of Wonhyo’s writings are lost, through his extant work we are able to get a solid glimpse of his profound and learned insights on the nature and function of the human mind. We can also clearly see his hermeneutical approaches and methods of argumentation, which are derived from apophatic Madhyamika analysis, the newly introduced Buddhist logic, as well as various indigenous East Asian approaches. This volume includes four of Wonhyo’s works that are especially revelatory of his treatment of the complex flow of ideas in his generation: System of the Two Hindrances, Treatise on the Ten Ways of Resolving Controversies, Commentary on the Discrimination between the Middle and the Extremes, and the Critical Discussion on Inference. (shrink)

Leading East Asian Buddhist thinkers of the seventh century compared, analyzed, and finalized seminal epistemological and soteriological issues that had been under discussion in India and East Asia for centuries. Among the many doctrinal issues that came to the fore was the relationship between the Tathagatagarbha understanding of the human psyche and the view of basic karmic indeterminacy articulated by the new stream of Indian Yogacara introduced through the translations and writings of Xuanzang and his disciples. The great Silla (...) scholiast Wonhyo, although geographically located on the periphery in the Korean peninsula, was very much at the center of the intense discussion and debate that occurred on these topics. Through the force of his writings, he became one of the most influential figures in resolving doctrinal discrepancies for East Asian Buddhism. Although many of Wonhyo’s writings are lost, through his extant work we are able to get a solid glimpse of his profound and learned insights on the nature and function of the human mind. We can also clearly see his hermeneutical approaches and methods of argumentation, which are derived from apophatic Madhyamika analysis, the newly introduced Buddhist logic, as well as various indigenous East Asian approaches. This volume includes four of Wonhyo’s works that are especially revelatory of his treatment of the complex flow of ideas in his generation: System of the Two Hindrances, Treatise on the Ten Ways of Resolving Controversies, Commentary on the Discrimination between the Middle and the Extremes, and the Critical Discussion on Inference. (shrink)

The Platform Sūtra presents a variety of concepts, but in the deeper plane all these concepts can be roughly induced as a reinterpretation of enlightenment and a description of Chan’s distinctive experience of enlightenment. Through a sophisticated display of ontological paradox, the sūtra integrates tathāgatagarbha thought with prajñā wisdom to illuminate why enlightenment is possible for ordinary people in their existential life experience. Following the claim of tathāgatagarbha and earlier Chan texts that all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature, the sūtra further (...) blurs the line between empirical mind and pure nature and endows the mind-nature unity with the transcendental implication of original enlightenment. At the same time, the sūtra points out the emptiness and nonattachment of the mind-nature with the doctrines of no-thought, no-form, and no-abiding, which are grounded in the prajñāparamita and Madhyamika literature. For the soteriological-methodological concern, the Platform Sūtra applies the Awakening of Faith’s theory of “two aspects of one-mind” to advocate seeing one’s originally enlightened mind-nature directly from the perception of true reality. This perceptional experience of enlightenment solves the dilemmatic relationship between the two key soteriological categories of ignorance and enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition. As a result, the sūtra emphasizes the approach of sudden awakening and reinterprets samādhi and prajñā as both identically, simultaneously, and inseparably representing the experience of enlightenment. Through metaphors of transmission of Dharma genealogy, ordination genealogy, platform, and even the Platform Sūtra itself, Huineng is presented as a “living Buddha” or successful enlightenment experience by an ordinary person. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Prospects for a Mahāyāna Theology of EmptinessA Continuing DebateJohn P. KeenanTwo articles in recent issues of Buddhist-Christian Studies—Lai Pan-chiu’s “A Mahāyāna Reading of Chalcedon Christology: A Chinese Response to John Keenan” 1 (2004) and Thomas Cattoi’s “What Has Chalcedon to Do with Lhasa? John Keenan’s and Lai Pan-chiu’s Reflections on Classical Christology and the Possible Shape of a Tibetan Theology of Incarnation” 2 (2008)—discuss my book The Meaning (...) of Christ: A Mahāyāna Theology (1989),3 prompting me to add my voice to the conversation.In “A Mahāyāna Reading of Chalcedon Christology: A Chinese Response to John Keenan,” Lai Pan-chiu reads from the perspective of a Chinese Christian thinker my formulation of a Christology informed by Indian Mahāyāna philosophy. He would prefer to configure a rather different Mahāyāna theology, wherein the polarity expressed in traditional Chalcedonian theology would be reinvested in a Chinese Mahāyāna dynamic, with its ability to hold in creative tension what are often seen as exclusionary opposites. Lai proposes to take as leitmotif for this project the Chinese Mahāyāna theme of Buddha Nature (C. fóxìng ) and its Indian precursor of Tathāgatagarbha (Skt. “matrix of the Buddha”) thought. Although—for reasons I will discuss below—I would not myself choose this approach in writing Christology for a western audience, I certainly would commend Lai Pan-chiu’s effort to do so for a Chinese audience and beyond.In “What Has Chalcedon to Do with Lhasa? John Keenan’s and Lai Pan-chiu’s Reflections on Classical Christology and the Possible Shape of a Tibetan Theology of Incarnation,” Thomas Cattoi contends that Lai has not gone far enough in responding to The Meaning of Christ. Cattoi himself then proceeds with a critique of Mahāyāna theology that reveals both his own unwavering commitment to traditional ontological theology and his apparent disinterest in engaging Buddhist Mahāyāna philosophy in depth. He makes little or no reference to the Mahāyāna philosophical themes that I discuss in detail in The Meaning of Christ—themes that I then employ to enunciate a Mahāyāna Christology. Moreover, the alternative “Tibetan Christology” that Cattoi proffers in this article also appears to avoid any deep or detailed engagement [End Page 3] with Mahāyāna thought. He seems satisfied to employ Tibetan Buddhist terminology simply to reaffirm what we have long affirmed in the Greek, emphasizing the embodiment of Christ as the unicum, the one and only embodiment of God, and the transformation of the very fabric of the universe effected thereby.4 His Christology functions as a description of that transformation and, to my lights, leaves scant room for any Trinitarian theology of the Spirit. He argues against the notion that any discourse can empty the ontological claims of “the Christian position.” For him, only the ontological theology of our Greek ancestors is adequate—apparently culturally privileged because providentially inspired.I will address herein some of the many, often convoluted, issues raised, for these issues are basic to Mahāyāna theology and to critiques against its viability. I choose not to detail the many instances in which Thomas Cattoi misreads, mischaracterizes, and misrepresents my work; I must only trust that those who have read The Meaning of Christ are well aware that Cattoi’s characterizations of that book reflect neither its content nor its tone.5 I shall use this space instead to further clarify the shape of a Mahāyāna theology that employs the principal themes of Mādhyamika and Yogācāra, and will discuss in a more general way Cattoi’s fundamental inattentiveness to those themes and to the manner in which they inform Mahāyāna theology.6 I shall also discuss Lai Pan-chiu’s very interesting proposal for a Chinese Mahāyāna theology.Ontology and MahĀyĀna Realms of UnderstandingMahāyāna theology is not Cattoi’s “Mādhyamika dualism.”7 Mahāyāna theology does not represent a Buddhist “position,” but rather the emptiness of all... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Into the Jaws of Yama, Lord of Death: Buddhism, Bioethics, and DeathDamien KeownInto the Jaws of Yama, Lord of Death: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death. By Karma Lekshe Tsomo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. 270.An anecdote recounted in this work gives an insight into the present state of Buddhist bioethics. The author relates how she asked the spiritual director of a Tibetan centre in Honolulu (...) whether he thought it was a good idea to donate one’s organs at the time of death. He immediately replied in the affirmative. When asked if the removal of the organs would disturb the dying process, he responded that it would be okay since the doctors could “wait for a few days.” On being informed that the organs had to be removed immediately to save the life of the recipient he “expressed alarm” and changed his mind, advising that for an ordinary Buddhist practitioner organ donation might not be advisable after all (p. 160).The fact that Tibetan lamas are giving ethical advice on organ donation without even a layman’s knowledge of the medical procedures involved suggests that Buddhist teachers have a lot to learn about adapting traditional teachings to modern contexts. If the problem were simply that many lack scientific knowledge, this could probably be resolved in the short to medium term. The deeper problem, however, is that Buddhism as a tradition lacks the ethical infrastructure needed to address moral dilemmas, particularly those of the complex kind presented by contemporary scientific and medical developments. Despite their undoubted acumen in certain branches of philosophy (notably metaphysics), Buddhist thinkers of the past have consistently failed to probe the moral foundations of their teachings or to establish a theoretical foundation in terms of which moral dilemmas can be analyzed. Not a single treatise on moral philosophy was produced by any of the classical scholars cited in this volume as authorities. Not surprisingly, the legacy of this neglect is that the voice of Buddhism has been almost completely silent with respect to the kinds of ethical issues addressed in this book.The present work commendably seeks to remedy this absence of information on Buddhist bioethics. This is only the second book ever to attempt such a task, the first being my Buddhism and Bioethics, published over ten years ago in 1996 (reissued by Palgrave in 2002). In the intervening period there have been many scientific [End Page 157] advances, such as cloning and genetic engineering, both of which receive attention in the volume under review. While my own approach sought to build bridges by translating Buddhist concepts into the vocabulary of contemporary bioethics, the present volume holds more tightly to the traditional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Accordingly, while the concepts and terminology used will be familiar to those inside the tradition, I am not sure to what extent it will facilitate dialogue with bioethicists and clinicians, for whom the colorful and somewhat medieval facets of these teachings may at times seem esoteric.Before discussing the ethical issues further, it should be pointed out that less than half of the book (chapters 8–11) is devoted directly to bioethics. The first seven chapters are for the most part an account of topics in Mahayana philosophy (such as no-self, dependent origination, and emptiness) and descriptions of the beliefs and practices of Tibetan Buddhism surrounding death. These include meditational practices relating to death and the notion of the post-mortem intermediate state (bardo). Somewhat oddly, chapter 5, titled “Foundations of Buddhist Ethics,” has almost nothing to say about ethics: after a short but potentially interesting section titled “Buddhist Definitions of Life and Death,” it veers off into a lengthy summary of Madhyamaka, Vijnanavada, and Tathagatagarbha doctrines.Tibetan teachings about death have been summarized in numerous popular volumes in recent years, and it is unclear why such an extended treatment of them is presented again here. The opening sentence of chapter 8 suggests this was necessary to “set the stage for an exploration of bioethical issues from Buddhist points of view,” but the bulk of this material has little connection with bioethics. In particular, it is not clear how it is... (shrink)