Paul Williams - The Reflexive Nature of Awareness (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

General Editors:

Charles W. Prebish

Pennsylvania State University

Damien Keown

Goldsmiths College, University of London

The Curzon Critical Studies in Buddhism Series is a comprehensive study of the Buddhist tradition. The series explores this complex and extensive tradition from a variety of perspectives, using a range of different methodologies.

The Series is diverse in its focus, including historical studies, textual translations and commentaries, sociological investigations, bibliographic studies, and considerations of religious practice as an expression of Buddhisms integral religiosity. It also presents materials on modern intellectual historical studies, including the role of Buddhist thought and scholarship in a contemporary, critical context and in the light of current social issues. The series is expansive and imaginative in scope, spanning more than two and a half millennia of Buddhist history. It is receptive to all research works that inform and advance our knowledge and understanding of the Buddhist tradition. The series maintains the highest standards of scholarship and promotes the application of innovative methodologies and research methods.

BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Edited by Damien Keown, Charles Prebish, Wayne Husted

WOMEN IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BUDDHA

Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha

Kathryn R. Blackstone

ALTRUISM AND REALITY

STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE

BODHICARYVATRA

Paul Williams

Paul Williams

For Leslie Kawamura

First Published in 1998

by Curzon Press

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 13: 978-0-700-71030-0 (hbk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781315027302

This volume inaugurates a series of monographs on Buddhism as a part of the cultural and intellectual life and history of Tibet and the Tibetan cultural area, an area encompassing lands from the Himalayas to the far reaches of Mongolian civilisation. The Dharma Vajra Series will include works exploring the diversity of these traditions through a variety of approaches, including not only philosophical analyses, but also historical, sociological, and anthropological studies, textual and literary studies, bibliographic works, and studies of Buddhist arts and music.

We are fortunate indeed to have Paul Williams work on self-awareness (rang rig/svasavedana) as our lead volume both for its subject matter and its author. Self-awareness is a topic that is central to the practice of Tibetan Buddhismespecially the rDzogs chen tradition of the rNying ma schoolas well being one of the doctrinal points essential to Tibetan doxographic analyses of the Buddhist philosophies of Indian Mahyna. It is one of the notable issues in the dialogue between Yogcra and Madhyamaka Buddhism in India and later, in Tibet, between the dGe lugs tradition initiated by Tsong kha pa and writers such as Mi pham Jam dbyangs rnam rgyal rgya mtsho, dialogues that shed light not only on Buddhist views about the nature of the mind and of spiritual experience, but also on the primary ontological distinction made in Mahyna Buddhism, that between conventional and ultimate truth.

These are subjects that Paul Williams has explored for some time, beginning with his presentation to the Csoma de Krs Symposium held in Austria in 1981a paper subsequently published as On Rang Rig and included in its entirety as an appendix to the present work. The author has written prolifically on Madhyamaka in Tibetintroducing us to thinkers and ideas outside of the dGe lugs pa orthodoxy and, in so doing, giving voice to Tibetan philosophical interpretations that have not received as much attention as they should from modern Western scholars. His 1989 book Mahyna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London and New York: Routledge) is well known for its lucid overview of the Mahyna texts and their philosophies not only in India and Tibet but throughout Asia. The present work is a continuation of what he has given us in the past: clear, but closely argued, expositions and analyses of Tibetan interpretations of Indian Buddhism, illuminated by a fine insight into the historical context of Tibetan Buddhist philosophising.

Joe Bransford Wilson

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington

This monograph began as an article for a collection of my papers on the Indo-Tibetan interpretation of verses from the Bodhicaryvatra. That book is forthcoming as Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicaryvatra. The article simply outgrew its paper format and has become an academic monograph, although it really belongs with those other papers. Research on the present work and most of the writing was completed during my tenure of the Numata Chair of Buddhist Studies at the University of Calgary, Winter 1994. I remain extremely grateful to the University of Calgary, its library, and the Department of Religious Studies for the wonderful facilities and hospitality they extended to me during that visit. I have developed a great affection for Calgary and its university, and the department showed itself a model of how to treat a visiting professor. In particular, I should like to thank my colleagues in Buddhist Studies at Calgary, Leslie Kawamura and A.W. Barber, together with their families, for their warm friendship, the stimulating discussions, and willingness to help and offer whatever might be needed for my research. I am grateful also to Ernst Steinkellner for permission to reprint as Appendix 2 my 1983 article On rang rig, and to my research student Ornan Rotem for covering some of my teaching while I was in Canada, and for his computing talents, patience and humor. A particular debt of gratitude is due to Joe Wilson, who not only accepted this book for inclusion in his series but also went over it minutely, helped with the preparation of the manuscript, and made a number of helpful suggestions. I should also like to record my appreciation of Ursula King for her encouragement and support, including financial support, for Buddhist Studies and the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol.

I am delighted to be able to dedicate this small book to Leslie Kawamura, a meticulous scholar who I am sure will not agree with much that I have written, a great enthusiast for Mi pham and one of the first to introduce Mi pham to Western scholarship.

Those with an interest in these things are now familiar with the idea that the philosophical and meditative tradition called rDzogs chen, known most notably from the rNying ma pa school of Tibetan Buddhism, teaches a primordial substratum (