This book explores a number of themes in connection with the concept of Emptiness, a highly technical but very central notion in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. It examines the critique by the leading Nyingma school philosopher Mipham (1846--1912), one of the Tibet's brighest and most versatile minds, formulated in his diverse writings. The book focuses on related issues such as what is negated by the doctrine of Emptiness, the nature of ultimate reality and the difference between 'extrinsic' and 'intrinsic' emptiness. These issues continue to be the subject of lively debate among contemporary exponents of Tibetan Buddhist thought. Karma Phuntso's book aptly undertakes a thematic and selective discussion of these debates and Mipham's qualms about the Gelukpa understanding of Emptiness in a mixture of narrative and analytic styles. For the first time, a major understanding of Emptiness, variant to the Gelukpa interpretation that has become dominant in both Tibet and the West, is revealed.
Mipham's Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness, Karma Phuntso, Curzon Press, Hardcover, 2005, 304 Pages, $115.00
Karma Phuntsho was trained to be a Khenpo, a Tibetan monastic abbot, for about a dozen years during which he studied, practiced and taught Buddhism in several monasteries in Bhutan and India. In 2003, he received a D.Phil in Oriental Studies from Balliol College, Oxford. He currently works at the University of Cambridge and the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris as a post-doctral researcher specializing in Buddhism and Bhutan. His main interest lies in he preservation and promotion of Buddhist and Bhutanese culture.
Acknowledgements xii
List of abbreviations xiv
Introduction 3
Emptiness and what there is 3
Emptiness, to be and not to be 6
Emptiness: a religious issue and the nature 10
of the debates
Mipham: a polymath and his works on Emptiness 13
Sources and methodological considerations 19
1 Emptiness: its soteriological, doctrinal, 23
ontological and historical significance in
Buddhism
Emptiness qua Non-self the heart of Buddhist 24
soteriology
Emptiness qua Prajnaparamita: the primary path 28
Emptiness qua Pratityasamutpada: the central 31
doctrine
Emptiness qua nitartha: the ultimate topic 32
Emptiness qua the ultimate: the ontological 33
truth
Emptiness qua nirvana: the religious goal 34
Emptiness qua Madhyamika philosophy: a 37
historical milestone
2 The big fuss about Emptiness: an outline of 40
the history of debates on Emptiness
Controversies in India before Nagarjuna 40
Nagarjuna's critiques and subsequent 42
controversies
Controversies during Early Propagation in 44
Tibet
Early debates in the Later Propagation 44
Debates after Tsongkhapa 47
Mipham and the later debates 51 (4)
3 What is negated by ultimate analysis? Debates 55
on the delimitation of the Madhyamika negandum
The delimitation of the negandum 56
BA, IX/140 and negandum 60
Some Gelukpa criticisms of the Ngarabpa 66
position
What is 'hypostatically existent' and when 70
does one negate?
On insertion of the qualifiers 75
Mipham's main criticisms 79
On the tetralemma methodology 91
The Gelukpa interpretation of 'neither 95
existent nor non-existent'
The nuances of inferential arguments 98
The verification of contexts 101
An analysis of the cognitive negandum (lam 103
gyi dgag bya)
On BA, IX/26 107
Resemblances and reciprocal comparisons 109
4 The fully empty: Mipham's theory of the 113
ultimate reality
The ultimate and two truth theories 114
The ultimate and the nature of negation 120
On BA, IX/33-5 132
The two ultimates 136
The two ultimates and the two schools 142
The ultimate and the coalescence 148
The ultimate, middle way and elimination of 153
extremes
On MK, XIII/8 159
5 Is Emptiness knowable and effable? 162
On whether Emptiness is knowable (jya, shes 163
bya)
On BA, IX/2 166
Rebutting his refuters 170
Verifvingsubjective thoughts 175
Apprehension, grasping and the ultimate 178
Conceptuality, non-conceptuality and Emptiness 185
Mipham's theory of non-conceptuality 189(4)
On Hwashang and meditation on Emptiness 193
Is Emptiness effable? 198
Some concluding remarks 208
Appendix I 213
Appendix II 215
Appendix III 217
Appendix IV 219
Notes 226
Bibliography 283
Name and place index 297
Subject index 300
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