Je Tsongkhapa


Tsongkhapa, usually taken to mean "the Man from Onion Valley", born in Amdo, was a famous teacher of Tibetan Buddhism whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also known by his ordained name Losang Drakpa or simply as "Je Rinpoche". Also, he is known by Chinese as Zongkapa Lobsang Zhaba, He was the son of a Tibetan Longben Tribal leader who also once served as an official of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
In his two main treatises, the Lamrim Chenmo and Ngakrim Chenmo, Tsongkhapa meticulously sets forth this graduated way and how one establishes oneself in the paths of sutra and tantra.

Biography

Early years

With a Mongolian father and a Tibetan mother, Tsongkhapa was born into a nomadic family in the walled city of Tsongkha in Amdo, Tibet in 1357. It is said that the Buddha Sakyamuni spoke of his coming as an emanation of the Bodhisattva Manjusri in the short verse from the Root Tantra of Manjushri :
According to hagiographic accounts, Tsongkhapa's birth was prophesied by the 12th abbot of the Snar thang monastery, and was recognized as such at a young age, taking the lay vows at the age of three before Rolpe Dorje, 4th Karmapa Lama and was named Künga Nyingpo. At the age of seven, he was ordained as a śrāmaṇera by Döndrup Rinchen, the first abbott of Jakhyung Monastery, and was given the ordination name Losang Drakpa.

Monastic career

It was at this early age that he was able to receive the empowerments of Heruka, Hevajra, and Yamantaka, three of the most prominent wrathful deities of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as being able to recite a great many Sutras, not the least of which was Mañjuśrīnāmasamgīti. He would go on to be a great student of the vinaya, the doctrine of behaviour, and even later of the Six Yogas of Naropa, the Kalachakra tantra, and the practice of Mahamudra. At the age of 24, he received full ordination as a monk of the Sakya school.
From Zhönnu Lodrö and Rendawa, he received the lineage of the Pramanavarttika transmitted by Sakya Pandita. He mastered all the courses of study at Drigung kagyud Monastery in Ü-Tsang.
As an emanation of Manjusri, Tsongkhapa is said have been of "one mind" with Atiśa, received the Kadam lineages and studied the major Sarma tantras under Sakya and Kagyu masters. He also studied with a Nyingma teacher, the siddha Lek gyi Dorjé and the abbot of Shalu Monastery, Chö kyi Pel, and his main Dzogchen master was Drupchen Lekyi Dorje, also known as Namkha Gyaltsen.
In addition to his studies, he engaged in extensive meditation retreats. He is reputed to have performed millions of prostrations, mandala offerings and other forms of purification practice. Tsongkhapa often had visions of iṣṭadevatās, especially of Manjusri, with whom he would communicate directly to clarify difficult points of the scriptures.

Honours

Tsongkhapa was one of the foremost authorities of Tibetan Buddhism at the time. He composed a devotional prayer called the Migtsema Prayer to his Sakya master Rendawa, which was offered back to Tsongkhapa, with the note of his master saying that these verses were more applicable to Tsongkhapa than to himself.

Death

Tsongkhapa died in 1419 at the age of sixty-two. After his death several biographies were written by Lamas of different traditions. Wangchuk Dorje, 9th Karmapa Lama, praised Tsongkhapa as one "who swept away wrong views with the correct and perfect ones." Mikyö Dorje, 8th Karmapa Lama, wrote in his poem In Praise of the Incomparable Tsong Khapa:
When the teachings of the Sakya, Kagyue, Kadam
And Nyingma sects in Tibet were declining,
You, O Tsong Khapa, revived Buddha's Doctrine,
Hence I sing this praise to you of Ganden Mountain.

Philosophy and practice

Background

Tsongkhapa was acquainted with all Tibetan Buddhist traditions of his time, and received lineages transmitted in the major schools. His main source of inspiration was the Kadam school, the legacy of Atiśa. Tsongkhapa received two of the three main Kadampa lineages from the Nyingma Lama, Lhodrag Namka-gyeltsen; and the third main Kadampa lineage from the Kagyu teacher Lama Umapa.
Tsongkhapa's teachings drew upon these Kadampa teachings of Atiśa, emphasizing the study of Vinaya, the Tripiṭaka, and the Shastras. Atiśa's Lamrim inspired Tsongkhapa's Lamrim Chenmo, which became a main text among his followers. He also practised and taught extensively the Vajrayana, and especially how to bring the Sutra and Tantra teachings together, wrote works that summarized the root teachings of the Buddhist philosophical schools, as well as commentaries on the Prātimokṣa, Prajnaparamita, Candrakirti's Madhyamakavatara, logic, Pure Land and the Sarma tantras.

Essentials

According to Thupten Jinpa, the following elements are essential in a coherent understanding of Tsongkhapa's understanding and interpretation of the Madhyamaka refutation of essentialist ontology:
Tsongkhapa's first principal work, The Golden Garland of Eloquence demonstrated a philosophical view in line with the Yogacara school and, as became one of his hallmarks, was more influenced by Indian authors than contemporary Tibetan sources. At this time his account of the Madhyamaka "propounds a philosophy that later Gelukpas call Yogācāra-svātantrika-madhyamaka, yet does not have the authority of Candrakīrti's Prāsaṅgika interpretation."
After this early work, his attention focussed on the Prajnaparamita sutras and Dharmakirti's Pramanavartika, and it is this emphasis that dominates all his later philosophical works. Garfield suggests his stance as:

Philosophy

For Tsongkhapa, calming meditation alone is not sufficient, but should be paired to rigorous, exact thinking "to push the mind and precipitate a breakthrough in cognitive fluency and insight."

Prasangika - rejection of essentialism

Tsongkhapa was a proponent of Candrakirti's consequentialist or prasangika interpretation of the Madhyamaka teachings on sunyata, rejecting the Svatantrika point of view. According to Tsongkhapa, the Prāsaṅgika-approach is the only acceptable approach within Madhyamaka, rejecting the Svatantrikas because they state that the conventional reality is "established by virtue of particular characteristics" :
The classification into Prasangika and Svatantrika originated from their different usages of reason to make "emptiness" understandable. The Svātantrikas strive to make positive assertions to attack wrong views, whereas the Prasangikas draw out the contradictory consequences of the opposing views. In Tsongkhapa's reading, the difference becomes one of the understanding of emptiness, which centers on the nature of conventional existence. The Svātantrikas state that conventional phenomena have particular characteristics, by which they can be distinguished, but without an ultimately existing essence. In Tsongkhapa's understanding, these particular characteristics are posited as establishing that conventionally things do have an intrinsic nature, a position which he rejects:
Although Tsongkhapa is regarded as the great champion of the Prasangika-view, according to Thomas Doctor, Tsongkhapa's views on the difference between Prasanghika and Svatantrika are preceded by a 12th-century author, Mabja Jangchub Tsondru.
Tsongkhapa nevertheless argues that the Prāsaṅgika's use of reductio ad absurdum is also syllogistic, because one "refutes the opponent using a subject, a reason, and so forth that are accepted by that opponent."

Conventional valid cognition

While objecting to Bhavaviveka's understanding of a shared object at the conventional level, Tsongkhapa has to leave intact conventional reality and causality, to keep intact the teachings on cyclic existence and the basis for moral behavior. Therefore, he has to explain how conventional reality is perceived in a valid way, which he does by introducing "conventional valid cognition."
According to Tsongkhapa, following Candrakirti, all phenomena are empty of inherent existence or essence, because they are dependently co-arisen with mental imputation. All phenomena in all possible worlds lack inherent existence and come into existence relative to a designating consciousness which co-arises with that phenomenon.
From the Prāsaṅgika perspective, in order for something to exist, it must be designated validly by a designating consciousness. To talk about an object that does not exist in relation to a subject is incoherent. Anything which comes into existence through valid designation is part of "conventional reality" or "conventional truth." According to Lama Tsongkhapa, something is validly designated if it meets all of the following three conditions:
  1. It is known to a conventional consciousness;
  2. No other conventional cognition contradicts it from being thus known;
  3. Reason that accurately analyzes reality — that is, analyzes whether something intrinsically exists — does not contradict it.
Whatever fails to meet those criteria does not exist, and relationships between objects cannot exist without being validly designated into existence.
Nevertheless, Prāsaṅgika are not stating that nothing exists, but instead, hold that phenomena only come into existence co-dependently with minds which are applying conceptual and nominal conventions to uncharacterized mere experiences. Things and phenomena do exist co-dependently, based upon a relationship with a knowing and designating mind, but nothing exists - including the fundamental characteristics which compose our experience - in an independent, self-arising, or self-sustaining manner.

Identifying the correct Object of Negation

For Tsongkhapa, extended rational analysis is required to correctly establish what it is that is to be negated. This correct establishment is necessary to reach a liberating insight into emptiness, while avoiding the trap of nihilism, the possibility that "seeming reality becomes extinct or invalidated if a phenomenon is empty of that very phenomenon."
While the "I" or self is accepted as nominally existing in a conventional way, for Tsongkhapa, following Candrakirti, the object to be negated by reason is the "metaphysical fiction" of an intrinsic nature which is "erroneously reified." Tsongkhapa argues that "there exists within each of us a natural belief, , which leads us to perceive things and events as possessing some kind of intrinsic existence and identity." It is this mistaken perception which is the object to be negated.
According to Tsongkhapa, Buddhist and non-Buddhist essentialist schools are not negating the correct object, but are only negating "imaginary constructs" and "acquired ignorance," not the innate perception of an inherently existing self. They have "realized only a coarse selflessness and having thereby suppressed, but not removed from the root, the obstructions to liberation." According to Tsongkhapa, the negation of acquired, philosophical notions won't eradicate the afflictions or free one from cycles of rebirth. The negation has to go further, since the object of negation is not an acquired, philosophical notion of a permanent self, but the innate perception of an inherently existing self.
Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa, referring to Kalden Gyatso, notes that "there are actually two objects that must be refuted or destroyed," namely this sense of "I," and the subjective self, "the mind grasping at that false 'I'." By analyzing the sense of "I" and its logical contradictions, its seemingly true existence is seen through, which "destroys the continuum of the subjective mind grasping it. What continues is a wisdom mind."

Lack of Intrinsic Nature

According to Patrick Jennings,
This procedure is described in chapter 23, The person Lacks Intrinsic Nature, of volume three of the Lamrim Chenmo, and entails four steps:
Tsongkhapa saw emptiness as a consequence of pratītyasamutpāda, the teaching that no dharma has an existence of its own, but always comes into existence in dependence on other dharmas. According to Tsonghkhapa, dependent-arising and emptiness are inseparable.
Tsongkhapa's view on "ultimate reality" is condensed in the short text In Praise of Dependent Arising, also known as In Praise of Relativity and The Essence of Eloquency. It states that "things" do exist conventionally, but ultimately everything is dependently arisen, and therefore void of inherent existence:
This means that conventionally things do exist, and that there is no use in denying that. But it also means that ultimately those things have no 'existence of their own', and that cognizing them as such results from cognitive operations, not from some unchangeable essence. Tsongkhapa:
According to Tsongkhapa, emptiness is empty of inherent existence: emptiness only exists nominally and conventionally. Emptiness is co-dependently arisen as a quality of conventional phenomena and is itself a conventional phenomenon. There is no "transcendental ground," and "ultimate reality" has no existence of its own, but is the negation of such a transcendental reality, and the impossibility of any statement on such an ultimately existing transcendental reality: it is no more than a fabrication of the mind. Emptiness is an ultimate truth, but it is not an ultimate phenomenon or ultimate reality. It is also not a "Tao" or a primal substance from which all other things arise. Buddhapalita:
Susan Kahn further explains:

Non-affirming negation

A prominent and important feature of the approach is their use of the non-affirming negation. A non-affirming negation is a negation which does not leave something in the place of what has been negated. For instance, when one says that a Buddhist should not drink alcohol, they are not affirming that a Buddhist should, in fact, drink something else. One is merely negating the consumption of alcohol under a particular circumstance.
According to Tsongkhapa, for the the philosophical position of emptiness is itself a non-affirming negation, since emptiness is a "lack of inherent existence." One is not affirming anything in the place of that absence of inherence. It is not the presence of some other quality. If one were to describe emptiness as the presence of some quality -for example, a "voidness" or a "thusness" - it would linguistically and philosophically contradict the nature of the object which it is attempting to characterize.

Rejection of the storehouse-consciousness

The dawning realization of emptiness can be frightening, arousing "fear of annihilation." Some Mahayana sutras therefore argue that the so-called storehouse consciousness or mind-basis-of-all consciousness was taught by the Buddha "provisionally, for the benefit of those who could be helped by believing in its existence but who would be harmed by hearing the teachings about emptiness."
Tsongkhapa adheres to this provisional adherence of the storehouse-consciousness, but rejects it as faulty once one has gained insight into emptiness. He presents the alternative viewpoint of "the mere 'I'" which carries karma from life-to-life and uses other techniques to overcome the fear of annihilation.

Influence

New tradition

says that Tsongkhapa "wanted to create something new" and that the early Gandenpas defined themselves by responding to accusations from the established schools:

Monasticism and lineage

Tsongkhapa emphasised a strong monastic Sangha. With the founding of the Ganden monastery in 1409, he laid down the basis for what was later named the Gelug order. At the time of the foundation of the Ganden monastery, his followers became to be known as "Gandenbas." Tsongkhapa himself never announced the establishment of a new monastic order.
After Tsongkhapa had founded Ganden Monastery in 1409, it became his main seat. He had many students, among whom Gyaltsab Je, Khedrup Gelek Pelzang, 1st Panchen Lama, Togden Jampal Gyatso, Jamyang Choje, Jamchenpa Sherap Senge, and the 1st Dalai Lama, were the most outstanding. After Tsongkhapa's passing his teachings were held and kept by Gyaltsab Dharma Rinchen and Khedrub Gelek Pälsang. From then on, his lineage has been held by the Ganden Tripas, the throne-holders of Ganden Monastery, among whom the present one is Thubten Nyima Lungtok Tenzin Norbu, the 102nd Ganden Tripa.
After the founding of Ganden Monastery by Tsongkhapa, Drepung Monastery was founded by Jamyang Choje, Sera Monastery was founded by Chöje Shakya Yeshe and the 1st Dalai Lama founded Tashilhunpo Monastery. Many Gelug monasteries were built throughout Tibet but also in China and Mongolia. He spent some time as a hermit in Pabonka Hermitage, which was built during Songsten Gampo times, approximately 8 kilometres north west of Lhasa. Today, it is also part of Sera.
Among the many lineage holders of the Gelugpas there are the successive incarnations of the Panchen Lama as well as the Chagkya Dorje Chang, Ngachen Könchok Gyaltsen, Kyishö Tulku Tenzin Thrinly, Jamyang Shepa, Phurchok Jampa Rinpoche, Jamyang Dewe Dorje, Takphu Rinpoche, Khachen Yeshe Gyaltsen, Trijang Rinpoche, Domo Geshe Rinpoche, and many others.

Prayer Festival

The annual Tibetan prayer festival Monlam Prayer Festival was established by Tsongkhapa. There he offered service to ten thousand monks. The establishment of the Great Prayer Festival is seen as one of his Four Great Deeds. It celebrates the miraculous deeds of Gautama Buddha.

Western understanding of Madhyamaka

According to Karl Brunnholzl, Tsongkhapa's Madhyamaka has become widely influential in the western understanding of Madhyamaka:

Criticism

Some of the greatest subsequent Tibetan scholars have become famous for their own works either defending or attacking Tsongkhapa's views.

Own inventions

Tsongkhapa's rejection of Svatantrika has been criticised within the Tibetan tradition, qualifying it as Tsongkhapa's own invention, "novelties that are not found in any Indian sources," and therefore "a major flaw" and "unwarranted and unprecedented within the greater Madhyamaka tradition."
According to Thupten Jinpa, the Gelugpa school sees Tsongkhapa's ideas as mystical revelations from the bodhisattva Manjusri, whereas Gorampa accused him of being inspired by a demon. Brunnhölzl further notes that, according to his Karma Kagyü critics, Tsongkhapa was mistaken in some regards in his understanding of emptiness, taking it as a real existent, and thereby hindering the liberation of his followers. According to Van Schaik, these criticisms furthered the establishment of the Gelupga as an independent school:

Hornlike object of negation

Karl Brunnholzl notes that Tsongkhapa's "object of negation," the "phantom notion of 'real existence' different from the 'table that is established through valid cognition'," is called a "hornlike object of negation" by his critics: Tsongkhapa first puts a horn on the head of the rabbit, and then removes it again, a maneuver which "affects neither the rabbit's existence nor your taking the rabbit for a rabbit." According to Brunnholzl,

Works

Tsongkhapa promoted the study of logic, encouraged formal debates as part of Dharma studies, and instructed disciples in the Guhyasamāja, Kalacakra, and Hevajra Tantras. Tsongkhapa's writings comprise eighteen volumes, with the largest amount being on Guhyasamāja tantra. These 18 volumes contain hundreds of titles relating to all aspects of Buddhist teachings and clarify some of the most difficult topics of Sutrayana and Vajrayana teachings. Tsongkhapa's main treatises and commentaries on Madhyamaka are based on the tradition descended from Nagarjuna as elucidated by Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti.

Major works

Major works among them are:
;Biography
;Lam Rim = Great Treatise
;Lam Rim - Medium Treatise
;Lam Rim - Small Treatise
;Golden Garland of Eloquence
;Madhyamaka
;Tantra
;Lamp of the Five Stages
;Yogacara
;Other