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Absorption in No External World: 170 Issues in Mind Only Buddhism (Dynamic Responses to Dzong-Ka-Ba's the Essence of Eloquence)

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Absorption in No External World: 170 Issues in Mind Only Buddhism by Jeffrey Hopkins (Dynamic Responses to Dzong-Ka-Ba's the Essence of Eloquence: Snow Lion Publications) "This is without question the finest and most complete discussion of the renowned Mind-Only School and its Tibetan context." - Anne C. Klein, author of Knowledge & Liberation
"An exceptionally clear and detailed account of a central debate in Tibetan Buddhist scholastic philosophy."
- Matthew Kapstein, University of Chicago
This book examines a surfeit of intriguing issues raised in six centuries of Tibetan and Mongolian debate and commentary concerning the first two sections of Dzong-ka-ba's (usually transliterated; Tsong-kha-pa) The Essence of Eloquence, the Prologue and the section on the Mind-Only School. By providing vivid detail, Jeffrey Hopkins reveals the liveliness of Tibetan scholastic controversies, showing the dynamism of thoughtful commentary and stimulating the reader's metaphysical imagination. In the process of examining 170 issues, this volume treats many engaging points on Great Vehicle presentations of the three natures and the three non-natures, including how to apply these to all phenomena, the selflessness of persons, and the emptiness of emptiness. It concludes with a delineation of the approaches through which the Mind-Only School interprets scriptures.
This stand-alone book is the final volume of a trilogy on Mind-Only that Hopkins composed over the last twenty-two years. His heavily annotated translation of these sections in Dzongka-ba's text is contained in the first volume, Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism, along with a historical and doctrinal introduction, a detailed synopsis of the text, and a critical edition. The second volume, Reflections on Reality: The Three Natures and Non-Natures in the Mind-Only School, provides historical and social context, a basic presentation of the three natures, the two types of emptiness in the Mind-Only School, and the contrasting of Shay-rap-gyel-tsen of the Jo-nang-ba order of Tibetan Buddhism.
In this volume Hopkins presents opinions on crucial issues from twenty-two commentaries on Dzong-ka-ba's The Essence of Eloquence, considered by his followers to be so challenging that it is called his steel bow and steel arrow, hard to pull but powerful when one succeeds. The careful analysis with which these scholar-yogis probe the issues provides an avenue into patterns of thought that constitute the environment of the text over this long period of intense interest to the present day. Hopkins' lively style draws the reader into the drama, revealing horizons of transformative meaning,
This book identifies the teachings in the first wheel of doctrine and probes the meaning of "own-character" and "established by way of its own character." It untangles the implications of Dzong-ka-ba's criticisms of the Korean scholar Wonch'uk and
treats many engaging points on the three natures and the three non-natures, including (1) how to apply these two grids to uncompounded space; (2) whether the selflessness of persons is a thoroughly established nature; (3) how to consider the emptiness of emptiness; and (4) the ways the Great Vehicle schools delineate the three natures and the three non-natures and presents the approaches through which the Mind-Only School interprets scriptures.
The aim of this study is to bring to life scholastic controversies in order both to stimulate the metaphysical imagination and to show the non-monolithic excess of examination by the followers of a seminal figure in the Tibetan cultural region.
Hopkins annotated translation of these sections in Dzong-ka-ba's text are in the first volume of this series, Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism. It is in four parts:
1. a historical and doctrinal introduction
2. a translation of the General Explanation and the Section on the Mind-Only School in The Essence of Eloquence with frequent annotations in brackets, footnotes, and backnotes
3. a detailed synopsis of the translation that re-renders the text, with additional information, in more free-flowing English
4. a critical edition in Tibetan script of these sections in The Essence of Eloquence.
The second volume of this series, Reflections on Reality: The Three Natures and Non-Natures in the Mind-Only School, presents an introduction to and analysis of many facets of volume one. It places reactions to Dzong-ka-ba's text in historical and social context by examining the tension between allegiance and rational inquiry in monastic colleges and the inter-relationships between faith, reason, and mystical insight. Hopkins develops the religious significance of the central doctrine of the Mind-Only School, the three natures of phenomena by examining in detail the exchange between the Bodhisattva Paramarthasamudgata and Buddha in the seventh chapter of the Sutra Unraveling the Thought concerning the three wheels of doctrine and the three natures documents the markedly different view on the status of reality presented by the fourteenth-century scholar-yogi Shay-rap-gyel-tsen of the Jo-nang-ba order as well as criticisms by Dzong-ka-ba and his Ge-luk-ba` followers. Hopkins fleshes out Tibetan presentations of the provocative issue of the relationship between two types of emptiness in the Mind-Only School and how the topic of two emptinesses is debated today in America, Europe, and Japan, thereby demonstrating how the two forms of scholarship refine and enhance each other (these discussions continue in the three Appendices in this volume). Hopkins demonstrates the types of reasonings established by mind-only practitioners as means to overcome a basic dread of reality.

Dzong-ka-ba was a genius at creating consistency in systems of thought, but sometimes he provided only brief expositions and at other times only suggested his views. Scholars of the Ge-luk-ba sect-like others following a founder's words-have been drawn into the complex problems of extending his thought into those areas that he did not clearly explicate and into re-thinking what was clear but did not manifest the presumed consistency. The working premise is that Dzong-ka-ba's The Essence of Eloquence, though carefully crafted, is subject to the highly creative strategy of "positing his thought as long as consonance with the corpus of his work is maintained. The attempt at resolving apparent contradictions itself fuels increasing interest in the topics, this being a central reason why the Ge-luk-ba system of education, centered around scholastic debate, has been so influential throughout Inner Asia.
Although the superfluity of issues raised in The Essence of Eloquence is susceptible to being laid out in a linear run like a table of contents, (this being shown in the analytical outline after the table of contents in this volume) the only way a reader can react to the multi-sided style of confronting these points is to be within the perspective of the system being considered. Juxtaposing different parts of a treatise and examining their cross-implications, Tibetan monastic textbooks manifest a basic procedure of bringing the whole treatise to bear on a single part, thereby coaxing the participant into developing the worldview of the system. In this way, the overriding context of exposition involves the ramifications of every part (or at least many parts) of a text; the only way for the reader to adjust to this environment is to form the worldview.
Because the exposition moves from issue to issue in a format of confrontational challenges that are episodic, it can at times seem even disjointed, but monastic students learn to live from within a system by being led-in twice-daily debates-to react inside its viewpoint to a plethora of problems. The center of the process, never communicable in words, is the wholeness of the world-view from within which the student learns to live. Like debaters in a monastic college, we also can experience this only by confronting issue after issue, major and minor, in lively embroilment and with hope that the larger perspective will dawn. With this in mind, Hopkins addresses 170 such focal issues in this book.
Tibetan and Mongolian commentators employ various strategies for getting at the meaning of a text by:
dividing the text into sections
providing a synopsis of the topics through an elaborate outline
exploring the range of meanings of particular words
placing an issue in a larger context
extracting issues for extended analysis
juxtaposing seemingly conflicting assertions
finding internal and external evidence to resolve contradictions manipulating meanings so as to create coherence
raising a parallel concern from another context
exposing terminology hardened over centuries of use to analysis of historical development.
These modes of analysis, like those employed by scholars throughout the world, expose knotty problems and resolve seeming or actual contradictions.
Texts are not viewed in isolation as if they live outside of the situation of their culture; they are related to a body of literature and knowledge in such a way that the study of a text is a study of the world. Also, the context provided is not just that of the culture contemporary to or preceding Dzong-ka-ba's text; often, views of scholars subsequent to the text are similarly juxtaposed because the aim is to provide a worldview relevant to the reader's present situation, a comprehensive perspective that makes use of whatever is available. Beyond this, points peripheral to central topics often take center stage such that they provide a wide cultural context for more important issues-the context imbedding the reader in an all-encompassing worldview. These scholars, even when working on small issues, draw on a reserve of knowledge of larger issues, the basic principles of which are Dzong-ka-ba's. When they unravel his words, the exercise of exegesis imbeds the participants even more in the architecture of a living philosophy. Hopkins manages to provide a synopsis of the rich heritage of commentary and debate in the monastic tradition of Tibet and central Asia. He is also opens up Dzong-ka-ba's rich synthetic and scholastic insights into the whole of Buddhism to greater critical inquiry. The reviewer wishes only that other portions of The Essence of Eloquence would be exposed to such a profuse descriptive and analytical treatment. Students of Buddhism and scholars of religion will find the conceptual clarifications laboriously and intricately laid out point by point in this work, a good corrective to facile misappropriations of the intention and import of Dzong-ka-ba's remarkable insight into the nature of enlightenment and the human condition. Hopkins work will be a treasure trove for students of Buddhism for years to come.

Written by the translator-editor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's "How to Practice", Absorption in No External World: 170 Issues In Mind-Only Buddhism is a close scrutiny of points raised in six centuries of Tibetan and Mongolian commentary regarding the first two sections of Dzong-ka-ba's "The Essence of Eloquence", specifically the Prologue and the section on the Mind-Only School. Among the 170 issues closely examined are presentations of the three natures and the three non-natures, the selflessness of persons, and the emptiness of emptiness. Written especially for advanced scholars of Buddhism and its sacred texts, and featuring a delineation of the different approaches through which the Mind-Only School interprets scriptures, Absorption In No External World can be read as a stand-alone book or as the final volume as the author's trilogy on "Mind-Only". Also highly recommended are the author's previous volumes, Emptiness In The Mind-Only School Of Buddhism and Reflections On Reality.

The first volume is in four parts:

A historical and doctrinal introduction
A translation of the General Explanation and the Section on the Mind-Only School in The Essence of Eloquence with frequent annotations in the brackets, footnotes, and backnotes
A detailed synopsis of the translation
A critical edition in Tibetan script of these sections in The Essence of Eloquence

The second volume, Reflections on Reality, will:

Place reactions to Tsongkhapa's text in historical and social context by examining the tension between allegiance and rational inquirer in monastic colleges
Expand on the religious significance of the three natures of phenomena
Present Jonangpa views on the thoroughly established nature and Gelukpa criticisms
Explain the reasonings establishing mind-only as means to overcome basic dread of reality, and
Consider how Tsongkhapa and his commentators present the provocative issue of the relationship between the two types of emptiness in the Mind-Only School and compare how the topic of two emptinesses is debated today in America, Europe, and Japan, thereby demonstrating how the two forms of scholarship refine and enhance each other.

The third volume, Absorption in No External World, will examine a plethora of fascinating points on the three natures raised in six centuries of commentary through:

Identifying the teachings in the first wheel of doctrine,
Probing the meaning of "own-character" and "established by way of its own character,"
Untangling the implications of Tsongkhapa's criticisms of Wongchuk, and treating many engaging points on the three natures and the three non-natures, including 1) how to apply these two grids to uncompounded space; 2) whether the selflessness of persons is a thoroughly established nature; 3) how to consider the emptiness of emptiness; and 4) the ways the Great Vehicle schools delineate the three natures and the three non-natures.