FRIENDS OF THE WESTERN BUDDHIST ORDER

Seminar: The Precious Garland

Day 1.

Compiler’s Note: As you will soon see the scan of this seminar is very poor. The original that it was scanned from was just a carbon copy (the only remaining ‘original’) of the seminar. Much of what follows will, I predict, be totally incomprehensible!)

Silabhadra July 2004

S. All right, let' s start from the introduction. We can just read a para- graph at a time, just going round the circle from left to right. You start off...

? Nagarj na was an Indian pandit from Vidarbha in south India who lived approximately four hundred years after Buddha' s death. At that time the Mahayana teaching had diminished, and nagarj na assumed the task of reviving it by founding the Madhyamika school of tenets. Here, in his ' precious Gar- land', he clarifies the Buddha' s exposition of emptiness based on the Perfection

of Wisdom Su~tras (Prajnaparamita). He presents the ten Bodhisattva stages

leading to Buddahood based on the Sutra on the Ten Stages (Dasabhumika). He

details a Bodhisattva's collections of merit and wisdom based on the Su~tra Set forth by Aksayamati (Aksayamatinirdesa). The Precious Garland was intended primarily for the Indian king 'Satavah~ana, therefore, Nagarjuna includes specific advice on ruling a kingdom. (The section on the undesir- ability of the body is written with reference to the female body simply because the king was a male. As Nagarjuna says, the advice should be taken as apply- ing to both males and females.) Along his works, the ' Precious Garland'is renowned for extensively describing both the profound emptinesses and the ext- ensive Bodhisattva deeds of compassion.

S. Mmm. Carry on round0

? The translation is based on an oral transmission and explanation of the text received from His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalal Lama, in Dharmasala, India in May of 1972. The text was translated in accordance with the commentary by Tsong-ka-pa' s disciple Gyel-tsap whose guide has been included here to facilitate reading. The work was translated by JeffreyHopkins

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Hopkins, who orally retranslated the English into Tibetan for verification and correction by ati Rimpoche and then worked with Ann ~(?) to improve the presentation in English.

S. Mmm. So this little introduction gives us really all the facts that we need before we actually start studying the text. Is there annthing that isn' t

clear to anybody? Is it quite clear who Nagarjuna was, very generally speaking? the history of what he did, what his importance is in Buddhist thought and Buddhist spiritual

tradition?

? that Nagarjuna assumed the task of reviving .

S. Mmm.

? I think that Nagarjuna was more or less responsible for bringing the teaching out rather than rev......

S.Er, yes, well this reflects the difference between what we may describe as the Western scholarly point of view and the traditional Buddhist point of view. That' s not to say that one is right and the other is wrong, but there is a difference of standpoint here. The traditional Buddhist and traditional Tibetan point of view as expressed here is that the Bud~dha himself had taught the Mahayana, but the Mahayana Sutras were delivered by the Buddha exactly as they' ve come down to us. But that by the time of Nagarjuna they' d sunk into decline and Nagarjuna revived them, even rediscovered sorne of them. ~The Western scholarly point of view would be that the Buddha had not taught the Mahayana Sutras, certainly not in the form

in which they' ve come down to us. Maybe certain things that the Buddha actually said, certain teachings that the Buddha actually gave, contains the seed that later on developed into the Mahayana, so that the Western scholar would regard Nagarjuna as developing those seeds, not as reviving something which had already blossomed. So there is a definite difference of

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viewpoint here.

? That could be a Hi~nayana point of view F~naya~a' s the o~A,q4A ~~ of ~ teaching, and Nahaya~na came later

~. Yes, this is very mucii the Hinayana point of view, or Theravada point of

view, rather than.... t

? The correct point of view, as you say, would be the Mahayana of all... ~ndian and S. This is what, this is the~Tibetan point of view. Probably, if we locked follow at it quite objectively, we can't really ~ either point of view explicitly

I think we can't acctpt that the Nahayana Su~ras were tsught by the Buddha

exactly as they have come down to us, but we can accept that they certainly reflect the spirit of the Buddha, the spiri~f the Buddha's teaching, recast in - you know - another form at a later time. We can certainly see in the Pali

text even, not only the seeds but the quite definite statements of teachings later on that come out more fully~in the Mahay~-na tradition. So probably we just have

to follow a sort of middle way here, and give a certain amount of weight to the traditional point of view and a certain amc~rnt of weight to modern scholarly opinion, but not regarding either as ~xclusively right, or either as exclii ively wrong. ~iid then we find this sort of difficulty , you know, when we' re deal

ing with Buddhist Sutras very often. And to what extent can they be regarded later as actually the words of the Buddha? to what extent are thay sort of reshapings

of His original message? and it may well be that , you know, we can' t alway~ be absolutely certain that the Buddha said these particular things in that part- icular way. Probably texts

like the Udana texts, like the Sutta- Nipata, bring us back as near to what the Buddha said in the way that He said it, as anything else in the ~~ole of the Buddhist Canon. But that doesn' t mean that works tkat originat~ later as regards- their literary forms, don' t very faithfully reflect the spirit of the Buddha' s teaching, even though the form may be different, you

know,from the form that Ne gave the teaching. So it' s a question of a very was fine balance between the spirit and the letter. So here, whoever ~ responsible

for the introduction, is reflecting the traditional Tibetan point of view,

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Buddhist which again reflects the original Indian point of view that Nagarjuna revived

the Mahayana teaching, that that teaching had been given in its fullness exactly ~qA~ as contained in the Nahayana Sutras by the Buddha, eMiL that by the time of

Nagarjui~ this had ~unk into decline and been revived. And where as I said the Western scholar would be more inclined to reg~d Nagarjuna as developing some- thing which wasn't fully existing before his time.

Would ~ the king have scribes that this would'be an oral...?

S. Mmiii?

transcripted? Would this have been transmitted oraly and the king....?

S. N0~ as far as we can see Nage~juna wrote. By the time of Nagarjuna writing was in quite common use and he clearly ~ wrote this as an actual letter, or maybe a little sort of work on BuddhisL in the form of a letter.

? This would be about the same time as the Prajnaparamjta texts, the only ones that were written down?

is

S. Yes, yes... That about 400 years after the Buddha. You notice

it says the translation is based on an oral transmission and explanation. I mean this draws ~ttention to the fact that, you know, even when works were written down the teacher who wrote them explained tI,~m to the disciples, and 9-

they explained to t~eir disciples. Usually in Tibet you don' t just read a text

by y~urself, you go to a guru teacher who' s heard the explanation

from his teacher and so on. In the case of quite ~lementary works this isn' t

- ' so ii~portant, but if it' s something quite abstruse and difficult, well ob- vio-~sly it does become more and more important to have the correct interpretation. And sometimes the correct int~rpretation may even be lost, you kno~' ;, if that continuity is interrupted, and one m~y have to search it out again. So usually along with the text you get the oral explanation of the bringin~ out of the meaning of the text in full. And most people~hat have been on study

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retreats have found that they get far more out of the text in that way. If you very often just go through it by yourself, ? it doesn' t mean very much, but if

you actually go through it in this sort of way, then you see far more meaning in it than you would have done otherwise. Much more is brought out.

? Nn¶. W~~~nIty~~ asked out when you.... before your ordination,

er, what books you' d re~

S. That' s right..

? And by that they meant what books you' d read with a teacher~

S. Yes~ yes, thaft's right. That was in the context of the Therav&d~. That was the same tradition there. ~~at you've read by yourself in a sense

doesn' t count...... t~e-~ it' s p~~~~&t~7 Tim?

Tim (?) It' s £ood to keep a ~C' ~~~ ~~tudy retreats ohculdb

st~.

S. You' ~ ~e4&ee ~ all the anyway........ All flght, let' s go on to Chapter One and read a verse at a time, going round the circle

and t4~l - ~ )

Chapter One

I bow down to theA i~~a;-2+. fre~from all defects, adorned with all virtues, the sole friend o~~beings.

S. There' s quite a number of points to go into here. Tho is being

saluted here, who is the author bowing down to?

The Pu-ddha.

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The Tuddha, hm? ~~y do you think he is doing that?

Acknowledging the lineage.

S. Acknowledging the lineage and you know, possibly, as it were, opening himself to the spiritual inspiration of the Buddha.

? It' s like Milarepa with 7

S. Right, yes, yes. Fe says, ' I bow down to the all-knowing'. Now what does ' all-knowing'mean? Is he actually thinking that the Buddha ' knows all? that the Buddha ...