Tsong-Kha-Pa's Final Exposition of Wisdom | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeffrey Hopkins
Publisher: Snow Lion Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 50965
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 392
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 1559392975
Dewey Decimal Number: 294.3420423
EAN: 9781559392976
ASIN: 1559392975
Publication Date: April 25, 2008
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Product Description
If objects don't exist the way they appear, is mind itself an illusion, or is it merely empty of illusions? Is the reality of the mind already endowed with ultimate Buddha qualities, or is reality just the immaculate nature of the mind that allows for Buddha qualities to be developed? Tsong-kha-pa (1357-1419), the great Tibetan Buddhist master, had to address these and a host of other questions in order to formulate the nature of liberation in Buddhism. This volume presents the explanations found in Tsong-kha-pa's Medium-Length Exposition of the Stages of the Path and in a commentary Tsong-kha-pa supplied for Chandrakirti's supplement to Nagarjuna's Treatise on the Middle, contrasting them with views of his predecessor Dol-bo-ba Shay-rab Gyel-tsen (1292-1391), as found in Dol-bo-ba's Mountain Doctrine. The two systems--Dol-bo-ba's doctrine of other-emptiness and Tsong-kha-pa's doctrine of self emptiness--emerge more clearly, contributing to a fuller picture of reality as viewed in Tibetan Buddhism.
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| Customer Reviews:
Hopkins on Tsong-kha-pa and Dol-po-pa July 4, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Jeffrey Hopkins' Tsong-kha-pa's Final Exposition of Wisdom is the latest product of Hopkins' fruitful inquiry into Tsong-kha-pa's instructive disagreements with his opponent, Dol-po-pa Shay-rap-gyel-tsen, founder of the Jonang lineage of other-emptiness.
In Part One, Hopkins provides readers with three cross-referenced translations: (1) Tsong-kha-pa on special insight from the Medium Stages of the Path, (2) Tsong-kha-pa on the object of negation from Illumination of the Thought , and (3) Tsong-kha-pa on the two truths, also from Illumination of the Thought.
The section on special insight in the Medium Stages of the Path offers a lengthy section on the two truths which is absent in Tsong-kha-pa's earlier exposition of special insight in the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path. Hopkins notes 146 scriptural citations found in the Medium Stages but not in the Great Treatise and he also presents a correspondence table for the order of the seventy quotations that are shared by these two texts.
As always, Hopkins is generous in providing his readers with supporting documents. In the material introducing Part One, he provides a list of fourteen focal-points to Tsong-kha-pa's discussion on the two truth in the Medium Stages. In a summary to Part Two, he gives a list of twenty-four major points highlighting the systems of self-emptiness and other-emptiness. Hopkins conveniently boils these down to five quintessential perspectives and then to a single root difference (Dol-po-pa holds that whatever is explicitly realized by pristine wisdom must be ultimately established, whereas Tsong-kha-pa does not).
Along with the two truths, true establishment -- the object to be negated -- is a central theme of the three translations. In Tsong-kha-pa's discussion of the object of negation from Illumination of the Thought, the difference between the Autonomy School and the Consequence School regarding the object to be negated in the view of emptiness is approached not via the Bhavaviveka-Buddhapalita controversy (as in the Great Treatise), but by way of contrasting Kamalashila's Illumination of the Middle with Candrakirti. This far more direct approach begins with an identification of true establishment in the Autonomy School.
In Part Two, Hopkins stated intention is to bring clarity to the views of these great Tibetan polymaths in the mirror of contrast. This he has accomplished in an exceptionally clear manner by contrasting how Tsong-kha-pa and Dol-po-pa treat specific Indian source quotations. Followers of Hopkins work have been anticipating this level of comparison since Hopkins' recently published his translation of Dol-po-pa's masterwork, the Mountain Doctrine (See Hopkins 2006). Just as remarkable as Hopkins' proficiency with translation is his open-minded appreciation for both of these remarkably developed systems of thought that have dominated the Tibetan intellectual landscape for the past half-millenium. The combination of Hopkins' brilliant scholarship with his humane appreciation for disparate philosophical views breathes intellectual life into what might appear to be but certainly is not a mere scholastic discussion of emptiness.
I highly recommend this book to anyway who aspires to a clear but detailed understanding of the issues involved in the discussion of self-emptiness versus other-emptiness, surely one of the most interesting philosophical disputes of the last thousand years.
Another incredible edition produced by Hopkins June 21, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I would love to meet Dr J. Hopkins' muse/dhyana. Almost every year, it seems, this foremost scholar of Tibetan thought and literature provides us with an authoritative edition of master works from the Tibetan canon. Eminently translated, insightfully annotated, and tidily produced, each volume with his name is a welcome edition to any library on Buddhist studies.
Tsong-Kha-Pa's contribution to epistemology, ontology, and Buddhist thought cover an incredibly wide range of topics. It's a touch embarrassing that in the West, while we slavishly cite Foucault and Lacan, philosophers such as Tsong-Kha-Pa do not receive their due. In a time when, as theorists tell us, 'interiority' is a Shakespearean invention, Tibetan and Sanskrit texts show that Asian literary traditions have been debating the issues of subject and cognition for, I do not exaggerate, millennium.
I have nowhere near the reservoir of knowledge necessary to critique the minutiae of Tibetan Buddhism, its foundational thinkers, nor its places in the schema of Eastern philosophy. Even if I could, I suspect a scholar such as Hopkins could carry me across the continents in debate. If you need a more academic review, Google Jstor for more authoritative options.
But, if you're like me . . . an enthusiastic amateur hoping to stand on the shoulders of giants, pick up this volume. It's practically a manifesto on the art of thinking. Descartes, you don't seem to be such a heavyweight after all. And as for J. Hopkins -- wow. How do you do it?
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