Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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qwerty13
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Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by qwerty13 »

I have been reading book "Kagyu/gelug tradition of mahamudra" from here and there and there is one thing that I find difficult to understand. The mahamudra practices that are given in the root text (The main road of triupmhant ones) contain two mahamudra methods, sutra and tantra. However nowhere in the text or in the related commentary there is anything said about receiving "pointing -out" instructions. Kagyu traditions have sutra mahamudra and there is a lot of talk about receving pointing out instruction from qualified teacher.
But nothing is said about receiving pointing-out instructions in context of Gaden mahamudra practice. Why is this? Are they unnecessary here? I thought these are neccesary in sutra mahamudra practice.
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Malcolm
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Malcolm »

qwerty13 wrote:I have been reading book "Kagyu/gelug tradition of mahamudra" from here and there and there is one thing that I find difficult to understand. The mahamudra practices that are given in the root text (The main road of triupmhant ones) contain two mahamudra methods, sutra and tantra. However nowhere in the text or in the related commentary there is anything said about receiving "pointing -out" instructions. Kagyu traditions have sutra mahamudra and there is a lot of talk about receving pointing out instruction from qualified teacher.
But nothing is said about receiving pointing-out instructions in context of Gaden mahamudra practice. Why is this? Are they unnecessary here? I thought these are neccesary in sutra mahamudra practice.

The text is the pointing out instruction. It is not a direct introduction like what you receive in Dzogchen. Nor is it an introduction such as you receive in the four empowerments. Of course the fact that the text says:

Meditate next on a profound path of guru-yoga and, after making hundreds of very strong, fervent requests, dissolve your visualized guru into yourself.

This automatically means you must be someone who has received niruttarayoga tantra empowerment. There is no guru without a such an empowerment, so how can one speak of guru yoga? Guru Yoga is a method exclusive to higher tantra, the name of which is not encountered in lower tantra much less sūtra.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Malcolm wrote: The text is the pointing out instruction. It is not a direct introduction like what you receive in Dzogchen. Nor is it an introduction such as you receive in the four empowerments.
Ah, I see.now it makes sense
Malcolm wrote:It is not a direct introduction like what you receive in Dzogchen. Nor is it an introduction such as you receive in the four empowerments.
So is pointing out instruction more like word of advice that guru gives to student?

EDIT: Actually found this, this is usefull:
The pointing out of the mind’s nature, the pointing out of mahamudra, is not a secret thing. It is not actually something that is done necessarily one-to-one, or done very rarely, or secretly. In fact, anytime anyone teaches mahamudra, whether they admit that they are giving the pointing-out instruction and they say, “Now I’m going to give you the mahamudra pointing-out instruction, get ready…” [laughter] Or, they don’t say anything. Or, they deny it: they say, “Now I’m teaching you, but this is not the pointing-out instruction.” Even if they say that, it’s still the pointing-out instruction. You can’t be really teaching mahamudra without giving the pointing-out instruction.

http://kunzang.org/kplblog/2013/03/13/n ... ret-thing/
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by cloudburst »

Malcolm, in another thread you wrote:
This sutra mahāmudra of the Panchen Lama was very controversial in Gelug, and still is, to some degree. The 5th Dalai Lama was very opposed to it, in fact.
This seems doubtful to me as the Panchen Lama was a guru of the Fifth. Do you have any support for this claim?
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Malcolm »

cloudburst wrote:Malcolm, in another thread you wrote:
This sutra mahāmudra of the Panchen Lama was very controversial in Gelug, and still is, to some degree. The 5th Dalai Lama was very opposed to it, in fact.
This seems doubtful to me as the Panchen Lama was a guru of the Fifth. Do you have any support for this claim?
See Roger Jackson's article in Changing Minds: Contributions to the Study of Buddhism and Tibet in Honor of Jeffrey Hopkins.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Malcolm wrote:
cloudburst wrote:Malcolm, in another thread you wrote:
This sutra mahāmudra of the Panchen Lama was very controversial in Gelug, and still is, to some degree. The 5th Dalai Lama was very opposed to it, in fact.
This seems doubtful to me as the Panchen Lama was a guru of the Fifth. Do you have any support for this claim?
See Roger Jackson's article in Changing Minds: Contributions to the Study of Buddhism and Tibet in Honor of Jeffrey Hopkins.
It seems you are over-reaching here, RJ simply states that the 5DL was critical of the Panchen's interest in the Kagyu and their doctrines. The article itself concerns the fact that there is a debate over whether or not the Ganden mahamudra has any connection with Kagyu at all. Many Gelugpa believe that the mahamudra practices of Je Tsongkhapa were transmitted directly from Manjushri, therefore being critical of the Panchen regarding interest in Kagyu doctrines does not necessarily imply any criticism of so called Sutra Mahamudra.

It seems the 5DL strongly disliked the Kagyu
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Malcolm »

cloudburst wrote:
It seems you are over-reaching here, RJ simply states that the 5DL was critical of the Panchen's interest in the Kagyu and their doctrines. The article itself concerns the fact that there is a debate over whether or not the Ganden mahamudra has any connection with Kagyu at all. Many Gelugpa believe that the mahamudra practices of Je Tsongkhapa were transmitted directly from Manjushri, therefore being critical of the Panchen regarding interest in Kagyu doctrines does not necessarily imply any criticism of so called Sutra Mahamudra.
Perhaps. You need to follow up and look at Samten Karmey's article where he reviews this issue. It seems pretty clear to me that the Fifth was very influenced by Sakya in this regard. [He was from a Sakya family, wrote important texts on Lamdre and Naro Khachod, etc.].
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Malcolm wrote:
cloudburst wrote:
It seems you are over-reaching here, RJ simply states that the 5DL was critical of the Panchen's interest in the Kagyu and their doctrines. The article itself concerns the fact that there is a debate over whether or not the Ganden mahamudra has any connection with Kagyu at all. Many Gelugpa believe that the mahamudra practices of Je Tsongkhapa were transmitted directly from Manjushri, therefore being critical of the Panchen regarding interest in Kagyu doctrines does not necessarily imply any criticism of so called Sutra Mahamudra.
Perhaps. You need to follow up and look at Samten Karmey's article where he reviews this issue. It seems pretty clear to me that the Fifth was very influenced by Sakya in this regard. [He was from a Sakya family, wrote important texts on Lamdre and Naro Khachod, etc.].

I'm interested, thanks. Do you have the title of the article?
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Malcolm »

cloudburst wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
cloudburst wrote:
It seems you are over-reaching here, RJ simply states that the 5DL was critical of the Panchen's interest in the Kagyu and their doctrines. The article itself concerns the fact that there is a debate over whether or not the Ganden mahamudra has any connection with Kagyu at all. Many Gelugpa believe that the mahamudra practices of Je Tsongkhapa were transmitted directly from Manjushri, therefore being critical of the Panchen regarding interest in Kagyu doctrines does not necessarily imply any criticism of so called Sutra Mahamudra.
Perhaps. You need to follow up and look at Samten Karmey's article where he reviews this issue. It seems pretty clear to me that the Fifth was very influenced by Sakya in this regard. [He was from a Sakya family, wrote important texts on Lamdre and Naro Khachod, etc.].

I'm interested, thanks. Do you have the title of the article?
It is in the footnotes of the first article.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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This is offtopic, but can somebody explain me in simple way what is the difference between sutra mahamudra and Zen/Chan buddhist practice? Both have prajnaparamita as essential text, but we cant say that Zen/Chan practitioner is actually mahamudra practitioner, or am I wrong?
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Malcolm »

qwerty13 wrote:This is offtopic, but can somebody explain me in simple way what is the difference between sutra mahamudra and Zen/Chan buddhist practice? Both have prajnaparamita as essential text, but we cant say that Zen/Chan practitioner is actually mahamudra practitioner, or am I wrong?
In the end it boils down to whether mahāmudra is merely the nature of the mind, in which case there is no difference; or whether mahāmudra is a specific result, a siddhi, of a specific kind of practice, in which case there is a huge difference.

But given that the term "mahāmudra" never appears in any sūtra...
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Malcolm wrote:But given that the term "mahāmudra" never appears in any sūtra...
Is it possible that Mahāmudra was a development of Chinese Mahāyāna that made its way back to India and was then appropriated by Vajrayāna without an acknowledgement of its origin? That might explain why the term 'mahāmudrā' does not appear in any Indian Mahāyāna sūtra.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Malcolm wrote: In the end it boils down to whether mahāmudra is merely the nature of the mind, in which case there is no difference; or whether mahāmudra is a specific result, a siddhi, of a specific kind of practice, in which case there is a huge difference.
Well, I was thinking mahamudra as siddhi of specific kind of practice.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Sherlock »

Unsubtantiated and outlandish.

What makes you even think there is a direct link between Chan and Mahamudra?

20th century Western scholars used to say the same about Dzogchen and Chan because texts from both traditions were found in Dunhuang but fjrther study of sources like the Samten Migdron shows they are not direcfly related.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Sherlock wrote:What makes you even think there is a direct link between Chan and Mahamudra?
The similarity is plain for everyone to see.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Sherlock »

Untrained eyes thought Dzogchen and Chan are similar too.

They were still wrong.

pls read the articles here: http://earlytibet.com/2007/11/13/tibeta ... rors-chan/
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

Post by Sherlock »

I’ve managed four posts on Tibetan Chan without mentioning the question of whether the Chinese meditation tradition known as Chan influenced the Tibetan meditation tradition known as Dzogchen. Or, to put it in the stronger version, whether Dzogchen is just a disguised form of Chan. Partly, I’ve left the question alone because it doesn’t seem that interesting to me. It seems evident that if you spend a while with Chan and Dzogchen texts from the time when the influence is supposed to have taken place (the 8th/9th centuries) that there is one clear difference between the two: they are in dialogue with two different kinds of scripture. That is to say, Chan is a tradition in dialogue with the sutras, while Dzogchen is in dialogue with the tantras.

What he says here applies equally to Mahamudra
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Sherlock wrote:Unsubtantiated and outlandish.

What makes you even think there is a direct link between Chan and Mahamudra?
What makes me think like that? I am not educated in the matters of mahamudra, but here is a quote from Panchen Lamas Gelug/Kagyu mahamudra root text:
As for the actual basic methods, although there are many ways of asserting mahamudra, there are two when divided according to the sutras and tantras. The latter is a greatly blissful, clear light mind manifested by such skillful methods as penetrating vital points of the subtle vajra-body and so forth. The mahamudra of the traditions of Saraha, Nagarjuna, Naropa and Maitripa, it is the quintessence of the anuttarayoga class of tantra as taught in The (Seven Texts of the) Mahasiddhas and The (Three) Core Volumes. The former refers to the ways of meditating on voidness as directly indicated in the expanded, intermediate and brief (Prajnaparamita Sutras). The supremely realized Arya Nagarjuna has said, “Except for this, there is no other pathway of mind leading to liberation.” Here I shall give relevant instruction on mahamudra in accord with these intentions of his and discuss the methods that lead you to know the mind, face to face, in keeping with the exposition of the lineage masters.

So what Panchen Lama seems to say here is that Prajnaparamita is the essential text and sutra mahamudra practice is all about meditating on the view of Prajnaparamita sutra.EDIT: And because the Chan is basically has the same sutra as basis, question arises, what is the difference between sutra mahamudra and zen. I dont know, and I am actually conflicted about this, because so far I have seen them as different things.
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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I was talking to dharmagoat
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Re: Gaden mahamudra (kagyu/gelug mahamudra)

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Sherlock wrote:I was talking to dharmagoat
Ah OK
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