Freedom from Extremes: Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views" and the Polemics of Emptiness

by José Ignacio Cabezón, Lobsang Dargyay

What is emptiness? This question at the heart of Buddhist philosophy has preoccupied the greatest minds of India and Tibet for two millennia, producing hundreds of volumes. Distinguishing the Views , by the fifteenth-century Sakya scholar Gorampa Sonam Senge, is one of the most important of those works, esteemed for its conciseness, lucidity, and profundity. Freedom from Extremes presents Gorampa's elegant philosophical case on the matter of emptiness here in a masterful translation by Geshe Lobsang Dargyay.

Gorampa's text is polemical, and his targets are two of Tibet's greatest Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug school, and Dolpopa, a founding figure of the Jonang school. Distinguishing the Views argues that Dolpopa has fallen into an eternalistic extreme, whereas Tsongkhapa has fallen into nihilism, and that only the mainstream Sakya view - what Gorampa calls "freedom from extremes" - represents the true middle way, the correct view of emptiness. Suppressed for years in Tibet, this seminal work today is widely regarded and is studied in some of Tibet's greatest academic institutions.

Gorampa's treatise has been translated and annotated here by two leading scholars of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and a critical edition of the Tibetan text on facing pages gives students and scholars direct access to Gorampa's own words. Jose Cabezon's extended introduction provides a thorough overview of Tibetan polemical literature and contextualizes the life and work of Gorampa both historically and intellectually. Freedom from Extremes will be indispensable for serious students of Madhyamaka thought.

Genres: Buddhism, Philosophy

432 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Mesoscope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorampa is one of the principle classical authors of the Sakya school, and in this work he sets forth his view of emptiness and the two truths with reference to two well-known masters who, he argues, have gotten it wrong - the Jonangpa Dolpopa, who falls to the extreme of eternalism, and the Gelukpa Tsong Khapa, who falls to the extreme of nihilism.

Gorampa sets forth his own view in the concluding section of the book. In essence, he holds that the conceptual mind is not capable of rejecting all four alternatives of existence simultaneously (that phenomena exist, do not exist, both, and neither). Therefore, prior to entering the Path of Seeing, yogis develop realization of what Cabezon renders as a "quasi-ultimate", a kind of mental simulacrum of ultimate truth that is purifying, but is not an ultimate truth.

The ultimate truth realized by pure ground bodhisattvas rejects all four positions at once, and is inexpressible and beyond all knowing and thought. Those Buddhists who exaggerate the ability of conventional logic and language to identify ultimate truth therefore do not cut deeply enough through the rope of conceptual imputation. Thus, Dolpopa errs in arguing that ultimate truth itself inherently exists, and thus fails to eliminate the position of "exists," while Tsong Khapa errs in arguing that ultimate truth is emptiness, a non-affirming negative, and thus fails to eliminate the position of "does not exist." In this reading, Dolpopa is an eternalist who reifies ultimate truth into a truly-existing primal ground, while Tsong Khapa is a nihilist whose vision of emptiness undermines inexpressible suchness.

Gorampa structures his approach in four sections. In the first, he sets out in very brief sketches the views he assigns to Dolpopa and Tsong Khapa before briefly describing the correct view, free from all extremes. He then offers a refutation of Dolpopa, followed by a lengthy refutation of Tsong Khapa that constitutes the bulk of the work. His brief presentation of his own view concludes the book.

This is a very difficult work, even judged by the standards of scholastic Tibetan texts. Its organization is highly schematic and I found that I had to jump around quite a bit to follow his argument, which is often cryptic, and expressed in highly-technical language that freely mixes complicated discussions of tenets with terminology drawn from Grounds and Paths, mind and mental factors, and logic.

Due to his terse style, there were certain passages I had to read several times, and even after comparing them to other sections of the book and reading Cabezon's explanatory material and footnotes, came away lacking even a rudimentary understanding of what Gorampa was saying. For example, Gorampa's refutation of Tsong Khapa's presentation of how the "two selves" are posited by Prasangikas remains entirely opaque to me.

Here is my recommendation for approaching his work - begin by reading his short summary presentation of the views of Dolpopa and Tsong Khapa, then skip to the final section to understand what Gorampa's own view is. Then go back through his refutations of Dolpopa and Tsong Khapa, and be sure to refer back to the first section as you proceed through each argument, because he usually does not explicitly re-state the views he is refuting. It is often not obvious what exactly he disagrees with, what view he finds in his opponents, and what his own view is.

I have focused on his analysis of ultimate truth because to me it is the most interesting component of the book. He also advances significant arguments about the nature of the afflictions, the use of autonomous syllogisms and the differences between Svatantrika and Prasangikia, and other topics, but honestly I didn't get much from them. In my opinion there is no topic that has been more relentlessly over-analyzed by Tibetan authors than the Svatantrika-Prasangika distinction.

On the whole I was rather disappointed with Gorampa's overall disposition. I was excited by his critique of Tsong Khapa and his argument that the Gelukpa presentation of Madhyamaka understates the inexpressibility of ultimate truth. But I was rather disappointed that this position didn't visibly temper his own tendency toward reductive schematism in his presentation of the path. To me, the idea that reality is finally ineffable actually has implications for our idea of just how much we can pin down the details of realization and the path, but Gorampa clearly doesn't see it that way. He takes hair-splitting categories from the technical literature at face value to a degree that would leave a scholastic like Tsong Khapa's head spinning.

For example, in setting forth his own view of conventional truth, Gorampa begins with the following:

"Individuals who start [their training] in either of the two shravaka philosophical schools and then become followers of the Madhyamaka /before/ they generate the Cittamatra view will accept external objects nominally, but [since they are Madhyamikas] it is impossible that they accept that [things] withstand rational analysis."

Come on now, Gorampa - I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

What I found to be useful was his interesting and historically-fascinating contention that held, in essence, that emptiness is not ultimate truth - rather, ultimate truth is empty of truth, and is beyond all concepts. I think it's a useful position, though I actually find myself more on the side of Tsong Khapa on this issue, for reasons I won't elaborate on here, for fear of excessive length.

I should say I pretty much agree with his critique of Dolpopa - I also find the Jonangpa position untenable, based on a possibly-willful misreading of the Indian sources, and heterodox from the perspective of the four Indian schools, for what that's worth.

I would also be remiss if I failed to mention that Gorampa's description of Tsong Khapa's views is sometimes an outlandish caricature - especially his description of how Tsong Khapa presents conventional truth, which is an extreme form of linguistic nominalism that has probably been defended by no author ever. No fair reader of Tsong Khapa would agree that in his system, if a person calls a chair a cow, he can draw forth milk from it.

Cabezon is to be commended for his magnificent job translating and explicating this exceedingly-difficult work.

[Yontan Gyatso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorampa says exactly what I've been thinking. This book was banned for a long time in Tibet. We are so fortunate to have it not only available but in such a great translation. If you follow Mipham Rinpoche's thought, this book is for you. (All the more so if Tsongkhapa's presentation baffles you.) He agrees with Mipham that the ultimate status according to Candrakirti and Shantarakshita are not different, and that the ultimate being beyond concept does not preclude us using our intellect to work our way toward That.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent translation of a very important work on the dialectics of emptiness theory in Tibetan Buddhism, A must-read for those into this sort of thing.