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The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel
Gendun Chopel is considered the most important Tibetan intellectual of the twentieth century. His life spanned the two defining moments in modern Tibetan the entry into Lhasa by British troops in 1904 and by Chinese troops in 1951. Recognized as an incarnate lama while he was a child, Gendun Chopel excelled in the traditional monastic curriculum and went on to become expert in fields as diverse as philosophy, history, linguistics, geography, and tantric Buddhism. Near the end of his life, before he was persecuted and imprisoned by the government of the young Dalai Lama, he would dictate the Adornment for Nagarjuna’s Thought , a work on Madhyamaka, or “Middle Way,” philosophy. It sparked controversy immediately upon its publication and continues to do so today.
The Madman’s Middle Way presents the first English translation of this major Tibetan Buddhist work, accompanied by an essay on Gendun Chopel’s life liberally interspersed with passages from his writings. Donald S. Lopez Jr. also provides a commentary that sheds light on the doctrinal context of the Adornment and summarizes its key arguments. Ultimately, Lopez examines the long-standing debate over whether Gendun Chopel in fact is the author of the Adornment ; the heated critical response to the work by Tibetan monks of the Dalai Lama’s sect; and what the Adornment tells us about Tibetan Buddhism’s encounter with modernity. The result is an insightful glimpse into a provocative and enigmatic work that will be of great interest to anyone seriously interested in Buddhism or Asian religions.
The Madman’s Middle Way presents the first English translation of this major Tibetan Buddhist work, accompanied by an essay on Gendun Chopel’s life liberally interspersed with passages from his writings. Donald S. Lopez Jr. also provides a commentary that sheds light on the doctrinal context of the Adornment and summarizes its key arguments. Ultimately, Lopez examines the long-standing debate over whether Gendun Chopel in fact is the author of the Adornment ; the heated critical response to the work by Tibetan monks of the Dalai Lama’s sect; and what the Adornment tells us about Tibetan Buddhism’s encounter with modernity. The result is an insightful glimpse into a provocative and enigmatic work that will be of great interest to anyone seriously interested in Buddhism or Asian religions.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2005
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About the author
Donald S. Lopez Jr.
70 books56 followersDonald Sewell Lopez, Jr. (born 1952) is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.
Son of the deputy director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Donald S. Lopez.
Son of the deputy director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Donald S. Lopez.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 4, 2017
I've been fascinated by Gendun Chopel ever since I read an article Lopez wrote about him in Tricycle magazine around 2001 or so. Lopez described a brilliant, iconoclastic monk training in a traditional Gelukpa monastic university in the early twentieth century - one who regularly argued against some of the most treasured articles of faith within the tradition. In one debate, he argued for the impossibility of Buddhahood with such intellectual power that he left the courtyard in stunned silence, and later a group of monks beat him up and forced him to recant.
What can I say - this is my kind of monk.
This book is a translation of Chopel's greatest work, "Ornament for the Thought of Nagarjuna," in which he analyzes fine points of Madhyamaka philosophy and ruthlessly grinds much of the edifice of Gelukpa scholasticism to powder with his penetrating critical reflection.
If is a difficult work, and even with a long familiarity in technical Gelukpa philosophy, without Lopez's long and invaluable commentary, at numerous points I would have been lost at sea.
The main thrust of his analysis is focused on criticizing the degree to which the Gelukpas uphold the notion of conventional validity. In Chopel's view, Nagarjuna's treatises on wisdom, properly understood, lead a Madhyamika to a totalizing realization that profoundly alters their basic outlook. It precipitates a profound epiphany, revealing that the way people conceive of things existing is utterly false.
With their interpretation of Madhyamaka and detailed account of conventional validity, many Gelukpas undermine the profundity of that realization by defanging the serpent, as it were. By maintaining that the object of negation in emptiness is very subtle, they essentially say the reality experienced by superior beings is not all that different.
Despite accepting as their core tenet that phenomena are utterly beyond any concept of existence or non-existence, Chopel argues, Gelukpas nonetheless maintain that they understand perfectly well the nature of mind, the mode of being of phenomena, and the nature of realization. Thinking that they need merely add a parenthetical "conventionally" to precede their rampant speculation, they believe that this mind which is mired fundamentally in false dualistic appearances is nonetheless qualified to reason its way to the very nature of the cosmos.
He offers numerous ingenious refutations to specific arguments that are drawn from the literature. In one of my favorites, he cites the common attitude by Tibetan scholars that a particular teaching is infallible because it was proclaimed by Nagarjuna. Who, then, he asks, decided Nagarjuna was infallible? The great Tsong Khapa. And who decided Tsong Khapa was infallible? My peerless lama. And who decided your lama was infallible? Well, I did. So the mouse vouches for the dog that vouches for the lion that vouches for the dragon. In other words, ultimately, one relies on one's own judgment alone.
Chopel wants to stay close to Nagarjuna and Candrakirti, and avoid the speculation that abounds in debate courtyards of Gelukpa monasteries regarding cosmology and epistemology, and this is very much aligned with my own sentiments. He is often regarded as strikingly modern for a Tibetan author. I believe this is to a large degree because he is a critical thinker in the Kantian sense - that is, he is continually and explicitly focused on the grounds of his own method, and that of others.
This is one of the most fascinating, challenging, and valuable works I've read by any Tibetan author, and I feel a deep debt of gratitude for the care that Donald Lopez has taken in bringing across the work of Gendun Chopel to English-speaking audiences such as myself.
What can I say - this is my kind of monk.
This book is a translation of Chopel's greatest work, "Ornament for the Thought of Nagarjuna," in which he analyzes fine points of Madhyamaka philosophy and ruthlessly grinds much of the edifice of Gelukpa scholasticism to powder with his penetrating critical reflection.
If is a difficult work, and even with a long familiarity in technical Gelukpa philosophy, without Lopez's long and invaluable commentary, at numerous points I would have been lost at sea.
The main thrust of his analysis is focused on criticizing the degree to which the Gelukpas uphold the notion of conventional validity. In Chopel's view, Nagarjuna's treatises on wisdom, properly understood, lead a Madhyamika to a totalizing realization that profoundly alters their basic outlook. It precipitates a profound epiphany, revealing that the way people conceive of things existing is utterly false.
With their interpretation of Madhyamaka and detailed account of conventional validity, many Gelukpas undermine the profundity of that realization by defanging the serpent, as it were. By maintaining that the object of negation in emptiness is very subtle, they essentially say the reality experienced by superior beings is not all that different.
Despite accepting as their core tenet that phenomena are utterly beyond any concept of existence or non-existence, Chopel argues, Gelukpas nonetheless maintain that they understand perfectly well the nature of mind, the mode of being of phenomena, and the nature of realization. Thinking that they need merely add a parenthetical "conventionally" to precede their rampant speculation, they believe that this mind which is mired fundamentally in false dualistic appearances is nonetheless qualified to reason its way to the very nature of the cosmos.
He offers numerous ingenious refutations to specific arguments that are drawn from the literature. In one of my favorites, he cites the common attitude by Tibetan scholars that a particular teaching is infallible because it was proclaimed by Nagarjuna. Who, then, he asks, decided Nagarjuna was infallible? The great Tsong Khapa. And who decided Tsong Khapa was infallible? My peerless lama. And who decided your lama was infallible? Well, I did. So the mouse vouches for the dog that vouches for the lion that vouches for the dragon. In other words, ultimately, one relies on one's own judgment alone.
Chopel wants to stay close to Nagarjuna and Candrakirti, and avoid the speculation that abounds in debate courtyards of Gelukpa monasteries regarding cosmology and epistemology, and this is very much aligned with my own sentiments. He is often regarded as strikingly modern for a Tibetan author. I believe this is to a large degree because he is a critical thinker in the Kantian sense - that is, he is continually and explicitly focused on the grounds of his own method, and that of others.
This is one of the most fascinating, challenging, and valuable works I've read by any Tibetan author, and I feel a deep debt of gratitude for the care that Donald Lopez has taken in bringing across the work of Gendun Chopel to English-speaking audiences such as myself.
July 16, 2015
The central portion of this book is a translation of Gendun Chopel's Adornment for Nagarjuna's Thought, an esoteric work that challenges some of the basic principles of Tibetan Buddhism. Condemned for the sin of innovation, the Adornment gives evidence of the vitality of Madhyamaka philosophy of sunyata or "emptiness," the middle path between existence and non-existence. The language is quite technical and the translation is unreadable without reference to Donald Lopez's commentary, which elucidates most of specialized vocabulary.
The book begins with a short biography of Gendun Chopel, a fascinating and tragic figure who tried to harmonize Tibetan culture with the forces of modernity. His failure exposed the inability of the monastic ruling class to adapt to the contemporary events, a failure which led to the Chinese invasion.
This is a difficult book and Lopez's pedantic transliteration of Tibetan names (which renders "Gendun Chopel" [དགེ་འདུན་ཆོས་འཕེལ] as "dGe 'dun chos 'phl") doesn't help. It's well worth the struggle, however, both for an understanding of Tibet's recent cultural history as well as for the translation of a profound work of 20th century philosophy.
The book begins with a short biography of Gendun Chopel, a fascinating and tragic figure who tried to harmonize Tibetan culture with the forces of modernity. His failure exposed the inability of the monastic ruling class to adapt to the contemporary events, a failure which led to the Chinese invasion.
This is a difficult book and Lopez's pedantic transliteration of Tibetan names (which renders "Gendun Chopel" [དགེ་འདུན་ཆོས་འཕེལ] as "dGe 'dun chos 'phl") doesn't help. It's well worth the struggle, however, both for an understanding of Tibet's recent cultural history as well as for the translation of a profound work of 20th century philosophy.
November 27, 2009
He's definitely not your standard Tibetan madhyamika. Not a beginner's guide by any means, but if you've read Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Aryadeva, Candrakirti, Tsongkhapa, Gorampa and Mipham, you will find Choephel's take on things very interesting. Like all works on the subject, you have to think for yourself, and see if you can use what he's offering.
July 15, 2019
One of the most difficult books I've ever read ... Delves deep into the esoteric mysteries of Tibetan Buddhism. A profound text for meditation, at times incomprehensible, at times ironic and many times insightful. One to think about and remember.
Best enjoyed alongside the doco 'crazy monk' which also goes into his life.
Best enjoyed alongside the doco 'crazy monk' which also goes into his life.
March 13, 2011
A profound examination of the nature by which we try to determine what is the ultimate truth. A text to contemplate, again and again.
November 28, 2015
Wow, fascinating and very thought provoking...full of so much to follow up on on so many levels.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews