Customer Reviews

Meditation on Emptiness

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This encyclopedic and gound-breaking work inaugurated a new era of Buddhist scholarship in the West and significantly raised the standard for the study of Buddhism. This book is based on Professor Hopkins' Ph.D. dissertation of the same name. Since writing this book he has gone on to supervise the scholarship of numerous leaders in the field of Tibetan Buddhist studies at the University of Virginia, such as Elizabeth Napper, Anne Klein, Joe Wilson, Daniel Perdue, Donald Lopez, Guy Newland, and Georges Dreyfus among others. Together these scholars have produced a body of work which gives us a context and a philosophical vocabulary with which we can plunge into the world of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. This is of immense benefit not only to scholars but to Buddhist practitioners as well. This book started it all. It is a work of amazing depth which plunges into the Tibetan exegesis of the Indian Madhyamaka meditation. This analytical meditation tradition is designed to induce, through meticulous analysis, a direct perception of the absence of the mental and perceptual distortions which are at the root of suffering. The core delusion under which all mind-posessing beings suffer is the belief that phenomena exist inherently, or independently of their causes and conditions, their parts, and their designation by a valid consciousness. The fact that they do not exist in this way is called emptiness. Indian Madhyamaka masters Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Chandrakirti, and Shantideva express this view in their works. Their analysis is picked up by great luminaries of the Ge-lug-ba tradition in Tibet, such as Dzong-ka-ba and his disciples. Professor Hopkins primarily focuses his exegesis on the practical instructions of Chandrakirti as they are espoused by Tibetan masters Jam-yang-shay-ba, Nga-wang-bel-den, and Jang-gya. It is said by some that an analytic approach to meditation is contrary to the non-dual nature of realization in the Buddhist tradition. Such a view loses sight of the fact that all of these reasonings are aimed precisely at giving rise to such a direct experience. Putting these reasonings into practice can be the basis of profound and transformative growth, but it is up to the reader to breath life into the tradition by bringing these reasonings alive for one's self. Professor Hopkins here gives us a monumental collection of reasonings as well as a supportive analysis of pertinent aspects of Buddhist philosophy and the philosophical history of the Prasangika-Madhyamaka position which can be a cornerstone of our practice as well as future scholarship. Few works before, or even since, can begin to match the ambitious nature of this work which, in my opinion, is fully realized. In this book we see the serious engagement with some questions of fundamental import continued in the West.

For those of you who want a thorough "intellectual" interpretation of the stages that lead to "Emptiness," this book is the best so far. It is not an instructional book but it does give a crystal clear presentation of the philosophical schools within Tibetan Buddhism. I would personally recommend this book to those who are interested in becoming familiar with the Epistemological aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

I bought this book while browsing a bookstore at a time i was going through a difficult time graduating from professional school. at the time i wantedto learn how to calm my mind. nine years after I'm still following it's advice. the majority of people i have met do not know, as i did not, what Buddhism is all about. or rather most people are misconceived about the teachings. just the words and the way things are put: powerful beautiful, clarifying, serene, calming to the mind. I wish everyone would know about emptiness.

I have been studying Tibetan Buddhism at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Culture Center in Bloomington, Indiana under Geshe Lobtin ([...]) for about five years now and I would say that I am just BARELY able to make use of this book. Profesor Hopkins has done a wonderful job of bringing together authentic sources of Tibetan scripture and put it in one place. However, I would not say that this is a book a casual reader would get much out of. I am fortunate that I have Tibetan educated teachers I can talk to when I get stuck and so I am able to use this volume.

I have heard it said several times that a person of average means cannot understand dharma from a book without the help of a well qualified teacher. With this book in hand I would have to say that is certainly true. Buy the book and find a Geshe then sit, sit and sit some more.

Whether this book is merely abstract philosophy or whether it becomes relevant to everyday experience depends on gaining a sense of what inherent existence would be and then seeing that everything one perceives appears this way. The pivot of the practice of emptiness and of the generation of the wisdom that realizes emptiness is the identification that objects appear as if they exist in and of themselves. Then, an attempt is made to try to find these objects which so boldly appear to be self-existent; the mind becomes totally absorbed in attempting to find an object - among its parts, as a composite of its parts, as something separate from the parts, and so forth. If the search is done with keen interest, the significance of not being able to find the object will be earth-shaking. A yogi will then gain firsthand experience of the falling to extremes against which Buddha so frequently warned. Previously, the yogi took the independent existence of things as the very basis of his life; now that he cannot find anything to call an object, he falls to the other extreme of utter nihilism. The middle way, which is not a blending of these extremes but an utter refutation of both inherent existence and total non-existence, becomes relevant and comprehensible for the first time. The two extremes are identified in experience, and it is now possible to realize a sense of valid, nominal existence through gaining the understanding that emptiness is an elimination only of inherent existence. Emptiness becomes the context within which a yogi purifies his perception, imagining the world to be the habitation of a deity and himself to be a deity - all within the continuous understanding of unfindability.

A strong elixir for the path-seeking mind -- but then even elixirs can reduce the mind to a state of cataleptic numbness... Still, it broke ground...for another baker's dozen of synapse-stoking tomes of Gelugpa Madhyamaka, whose glow has warmed up many a fortunate cortex for more, and perhaps grander things...