Notes
1.In the Pāli tradition, the four seals are not mentioned in the context of distinguishing a teaching as Buddhist. However, there is overlap between the first three seals and three characteristics of saṃsāric phenomena found in the Pāli suttas, and the peaceful state of nirvāṇa is certainly spoken of in the Pāli suttas.
2.Treasury of Knowledge and Lamrim Chenmo consider unintentional actions such as accidentally stepping on an insect to be a type of karma whose result is not definite to be experienced.
3.In some cases ignorance (avidya) and confusion (moha) are synonymous, both referring to not understanding or misapprehending the ultimate nature of reality. In other cases, as is the situation here, confusion refers to not understanding or misunderstanding karma and its effects, and ignorance refers to not understanding or misapprehending the ultimate nature of reality.
4.Jeffrey Hopkins, Maps of the Profound (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2003), 948. For more on the Prāsaṅgika view of reliable cognizers, see 947–55.
5.Candrakīrti’s list of four reliable cognizers differs from the list that Dharmakīrti set forth, which is commonly taught in Mind and Awareness (Lorig) courses in Tibetan monastic universities. What constitutes each type of reliable cognizer differs as well. Usually people first learn the seven types of awarenesses according to Dharmakīrti’s presentation, where reliable cognizers are of two types: direct and inferential. Inferential reliable cognizers are of three types: factual inferential cognizers, inferential cognizers based on renown, and inferential cognizers based on belief. Dharmakīrti also asserts a fourth direct cognizer — apperception. In this book we are following Candrakīrti’s presentation.
6.These four reliable cognizers were commonly accepted in ancient India by both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools. In addition to direct perceivers and inferential cognizers, which the Vaiśeṣika school accepted, the Sāṃkhya school added reliable cognizers depending on scripture and the Nyāya school added reliable cognizers using an example or analogy.
7.Comprehended objects are objects cognized or known by a reliable cognizer.
8.Chokyi Gyaltsen, Presentation of Tenets (Grub mtha’i rnam bzhag), http://www.glensvensson.org/uploads/7/5/6/1/7561348/presentation_of_tenets.pdf.
9.This is according to Jamyang Shepa’s Great Exposition of Buddhist and Non-Buddhist Views on the Nature of Reality. Chokyi Gyaltsen says there are two divisions of direct reliable cognizers: nonconceptual and conceptual. The two presentations come to the same point.
10.Some people may initially have difficulty accepting the Buddha being a credible person as a valid reason for accepting a scriptural statement. Dharmakīrti agrees that this is not an indisputable reason. While we can prove the possibility of awakening by inference, we ordinary beings do not have the ability to know incontrovertibly that a specific individual is indeed awakened. Still, examining the Buddha’s qualities enables us to make an informed decision to give credence to his statements.
11.Translated by John Dunne.
12.Yojana is a Vedic measurement.
13.See the story of the Kālāmas in Approaching the Buddhist Path, 126.
14. In philosophical texts, consciousness is equivalent to knower (T. rig pa) and awareness (T. blo). The meaning of rigpa in Dzogchen is different, and both rig pa and blo can be translated into English in several ways.
15.Absorption without discrimination (asaṃjñāsamāpatti) and absorption of cessation (nirodhasamāpatti) are not minds but are designations for states where consciousness does not function because something temporarily inhibits its arising. According to Vasubandhu, the mental consciousness is not present at this time.
16. T. W. Rhys-Davids, The Questions of King Milinda (New York: Dover Publications, 1963).
17.In the Sanskrit tradition, life faculty (jīvitendriya) is classified as an abstract composite. As the state of living, it is the basis for consciousness and warmth.
18.According to the Pāli Abhidhamma, mindfulness accompanies only a virtuous mind.
19.These three understandings are also called the “three wisdoms.” Many scholars say that serenity is necessary for the understanding arising from meditation to be present. For example, the wisdom arising from meditation on emptiness arises together with the union of serenity and insight on emptiness, not before.
20.“View of a personal identity” is also translated as “view of the transitory collection” or “view of the perishing aggregates,” which are more literal translations of the Tibetan term. Here “aggregates” and “collection” refer to the five psychophysical aggregates. They are perishing and transitory because they change in each moment. According to the lower schools, the aggregates are the observed object of the view of a personal identity, whereas according to the Prāsaṅgikas, the aggregates are the basis of designation of the I, and the mere I is the observed object of the view of a personal identity. The lower schools say the view of a personal identity grasps the person to be self-sufficient and substantially existent.
21.Translators from Pāli often translate this term as “view of rules and rites” and explain it as meaning dogmatic clinging to ethical precepts and religious observances.
22.This term has also been translated as “meaning generality” and “mental image.”
23.There are three types of conceptuality — a conceptual consciousness apprehending: (1) A sound generality. The reverberation of the sound “pot” is in our mind, although we don’t know what it refers to. (2) A conceptual appearance (meaning generality). An image of the pot appears to our mind, although we don’t know the term “pot.” (3) The sound generality and conceptual appearance suitable to be mixed. We associate the conceptual appearance of pot and the term “pot.” We may think by using the sound of words, pictures, or both. Correct conceptual consciousnesses are determinative knowers — they think, “This is such and such.”
24.Elizabeth Napper, Traversing the Spiritual Path, ed. Jeffrey Hopkins (UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies, http://uma-tibet.org, January 2016), 204.
25.According to Dr. Jeffrey Hopkins, his teacher Geshe Gedun Lodro said that from the viewpoint of a conceptual appearance being the opposite of what is not the object, it is permanent. However, from the perspective of a conceptual appearance being a mental creation, it is a functioning thing; for example, when we visualize a meditational deity, the conceptual appearance of the deity has an effect on our mind.
26.All Mahāyāna practitioners practice the Perfection Vehicle, including those who also practice the Vajra Vehicle. Here the Perfection Vehicle and the Vajra Vehicle are considered to be separate branches of the Mahāyāna in order to illustrate some of their differences.
27.Matthieu Ricard, On the Path to Enlightenment (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2013), 150.
28.Maitreya’s text is written from the Yogācāra-Svātantrika Madhyamaka viewpoint. Here the higher training in wisdom realizes the selflessness of persons — the lack of a self-sufficient, substantially existent person. The seventh quality refers to realizing the two types of selflessness of phenomena as asserted by the Cittamātrins. According to the Prāsaṅgikas, both the third and seventh qualities refer to realizing the emptiness of inherent existence of persons and phenomena.
29.Thomas Cleary, trans., Entry into the Realm of Reality (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1989), 151.
30.The English translation of the section on “Relying on the Teacher” is twenty-three pages long. Only half of one page is dedicated to the topic of seeing our spiritual mentors as the Buddha.
31.T. dmigs pa’i yul du byas nas bsgom pa. Its object is a “content object.”
32. T. ngo bor skyes nas bsgom pa. Its object is an “aspect object.”
33.Tenzin Gyatso and Thubten Chodron, Approaching the Buddhist Path (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2017), chap. 11.
34.Thupten Jinpa, trans. http://www.tibetanclassics.org/html-assets/WorldTranscendentHym.pdf.
35.Translated by Geshe Dadul Namgyal.
36.Translated by Geshe Dorje Damdul.
37.Olivia Goldhill, “A Civil Servant Missing Most of His Brain Challenges Our Most Basic Theories of Consciousness,” Quartz Media, http://qz.com/722614/a-civil-servant-missing-most-of-his-brain-challenges-our-most-basic-theories-of-consciousness/.
38.Dr. Ian Stevenson is a noted exception. See his book Cases of the Reincarnation Type (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1975).
39.In the case of visual perception, scientists also speak of the aspect of the object appearing on the retina.
40.Also see Sara Boin-Webb, trans., Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching (Philosophy) by Asaṅga (Fremont, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 2001), 85.
41.Damdul Namgyal, “Sutra in Response to a Query over What Happens after Death: A Review,” http://thubtenchodron.org/2008/08/dialog-regarding-rebirth/.
42.The eight freedoms are found in Nāgārjuna’s Letter to a Friend (Suhṛllekha), and the ten fortunes are from Asaṅga’s Śrāvaka Grounds (Śrāvaka Bhūmi).
43.Tsongkhapa notes that ordinary beings born in the formless realm, and desire-realm gods who are always distracted by sense pleasures, are in unfree states because they lack the opportunity to create virtue.
44.Thomas Cleary, trans., The Flower Ornament Scripture (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1993), 1218.
45. The eight worldly concerns are also mentioned in the Mañjuśrī-buddhakṣetra-guṇavyūha Sūtra.
46.H. H. the Dalai Lama, Mind in Comfort and Ease (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007), 114, 116–17.
47.Glenn Mullin, trans., Gems of Wisdom from the Seventh Dalai Lama (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1999), 43.
48.Jan Nattier, A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path According to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā) (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 246–47.
49.Andrew Olendzki, trans., “Dhammapada,” Wikiquote.org, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dhammapada.
50.Lord of death is anthropomorphizing mortality.
51.For a more detailed explanation of His Holiness’s views on the interface of evolution and karma, see The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (New York: Morgan Road Books, 2005).
52.Garma C. C. Chang, ed., A Treasury of Mahāyāna Sūtras: Selections from the Mahāratnakūta (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983), 244.
53.LC 1:227.
54.Cittamātrins and below say that the cause of a ripening result must be either polluted virtue or nonvirtue, whereas Mādhyamikas assert that the causes of a ripening result and that result itself may also be unpolluted virtue accumulated by ārya bodhisattvas. They cite a buddha’s signs and marks as an example; they are the virtuous ripening results of the unpolluted uninterrupted paths of the ten grounds. (Causes for a buddha’s signs and marks may also be created while we are ordinary beings, as explained in the Precious Garland and the Ornament.) Similarly, Mādhyamikas say that the unpolluted ripening results of ārya bodhisattvas — their being born wheel-turning monarchs and lords of certain realms — come from unpolluted causes created on the bodhisattva path.
55.The Sūtra on the Ten Grounds reverses the last two results.
56.Defunct karma corresponds with indefinite karma — karma that is not certain to ripen or whose time of ripening is uncertain — in the Sanskrit tradition.
57.Negativity includes the ten nonvirtues, other destructive actions, and nonvirtuous mental states. Negativity and nonvirtuous karma are not synonyms. For example, anger is a negativity but is not a nonvirtuous action because it is an affliction.
58.Only Vaibhāṣikas and Prāsaṅgikas accept imperceptible forms, but the way they assert them differs. Vaibhāṣikas say they are substantially established, whereas the Prāsaṅgikas do not. The other tenet schools do not accept imperceptible forms.
59.A having-ceased is the potential that brings the result of that action. It will be explained in a later volume.
60.Not all scholars agree that Candrakīrti is the author of this text. Also, not all Tibetan scholars agree that Prāsaṅgikas accept imperceptible forms.
61.Jeffrey Hopkins, Tsong-kha-pa’s Final Exposition of Wisdom (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2008), 41.
62.These four are also mentioned in the First Dalai Lama’s Abhidharma commentary (EPL 607–8).
63.Even Brahmā’s arrogance — due to his mistakenly thinking that he created the universe — is neutral.
64.This special root of virtue is described in the scriptures in the context of differentiating virtue concordant with liberation, which is a synonym for the path of accumulation, and the root of virtue concordant with liberation, which is created owing to the power of the holy object and becomes a cause for liberation. Whereas virtue concordant with liberation requires that the person has the aspiration for liberation, the root of virtue concordant with liberation does not.
65.The great twentieth-century Theravāda meditator Ajahn Mun in Thailand had taken the bodhisattva ethical restraints in a previous life and relinquished them in this life. Yet he is said to have attained arhatship in this life.
66.Karma is defined as intention. Some stories — such as this story about the cause of Nāgārjuna’s death — suggest that karma may be accrued even when no intention is present. We cannot say with complete conviction that these stories are false, because the subtle workings of karma are beyond our comprehension. In some cultures, such startling stories play an important role in helping people to understand the importance of conscientiously observing karma and its effects.
67.William S. Waldron, “How Innovative Is the Ālayavijñāna?” [n.d.], http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/440169/original/waldron_how_innovative_is_alayavijnana0.pdf.
68.Jeffrey Hopkins, trans., Compassion in Tibetan Buddhism (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1985), 200.