1 62 Chapter 4: The Manifold Sayings of Dags po - B ackground and Transmission Awakening It is similar to sand that will never become oil when pounded The Bka ' gdams pa s have explanations (gdams ngag, *avaviida) but they have no instructions (man ngag, *upadefa) S ince a demon penetrated the heart of Tibet, Ati fa was not all owed to expl ain the secret Mantrayiina If he would have been allowed to so, Tibet would by now have been filled with siddhas ! The Bka ' gdams pa ' s Generation Stage consists only of lone male deities and their Comple tion Stage is merely a dissolving of the world and its inhabitants into radiance Now you should meditate on my Inner Heat of the A-stroke (gtum mo a thung) " 439 This is generally how Tibetan texts of later centuries, probably somewhat anachronistically, viewed the supposed twelfth-century tension between Bka ' gdams pa monks and lay yogfs, as here exemplified in the meeting between B sod nams rin chen and Mi la ras pa 440 The struggle to reconcile Tantra with the Common Mahayana in general and with monasticism in particular was widespread in the period leading up to B sod nams rin chen, and Ati fa's restrictive approach was by no means the only opinion on this crucial matter For example, Mi la ras pa's teacher Mar pa had during his soj ourn in India studied with the learned lay master Maitripa, whose synthetic approach differed substantially from that of the monk AtiSa Maitripa had attempted a synthesis by explaining Tantric concepts through the terminology of Common Mahayana philosophy as well as by laying more emphasis on the non-ritualistic, non-sexual aspects of the Tantras Yet, he never emphasized monkhood as a precondition for all Buddhist practice This could be due to the fact that Maitripa belonged to the Tantrika subculture and not to the monastic establishment, from which he had possibly been expelled during his youth on the grounds of having perfo rmed Tantric sexual practices while living as a monk 44 In contrast to Maitripa, Atifa belonged to the monastic culture and was a staunch defender of its virtues Consequently, during his stay in Tibet Atifa stressed monkhood and the Common Mahayana teachings and prohibited monks from practicing the central elements of the Anuttarayogatantras It is therefore not surprising that the synthesis of Tantra and C ommon Mahayana propagated in Tibet by Ati fa represented the way in which Tantra was viewed from within the Indian monastic establishment rather than how it was seen from the point of view of the Tantric subculture that continued to exist outside the monasteries in India as well as in Tibet Atifa's combina tion of Mahayana and Tantra was therefore a shift in emphasis for the Tibetans but also a limitation In fact, Atifa had deadlocked Tantric practice for the monastics 439 The Blue Annals (CHANDRA, 974:396-397; ROERICH, 949:455-456) The English translation is loosely based on ROERICH's translation but has been modified in some aspects 440 As remarked above, such tension i s , however, not found expressed in all the earliest hagiographical fragments dealing with B sod nams rin chen's life A case in point is the first 'auto biographical' narrative, which speaks of Mi la ras pa as warmly approving B sod nams rin chen's former meditative practice based in the Bka ' gdams tradition 441 According to the later Tibetan tradition he was expelled, but according to the Nepalese tradition he gave up the monastic life voluntari ly after having had a vision of Avalokitesvara (see TATZ, 98 :700-70 ) Chapter : The Man ifold Sayings of Dags po - B ackground and Transmis.JiiOn 63 Although B sod nams rin chen was a Bka ' gdams pa monk, he chose to break away from such monastic attitudes by going to study under the non-monastic yogf Mi la ras pa and subs equently by teaching Tantric instructions alongside Bka ' gdams pa teachings combined wi th his own unique Mahiimudra doctrine Moreover, B sod nams rin chen was not the only Bka ' gdams pa monk to pick such a path There were other monks who went to study under yo gf teachers, for example, S gam po pa's biographer Rgyal ba Khyung ts hang ba Ye shes Bla ma, who studied with Mi la ras pa' s student Ras chung pa It is said that Ye shes Bla ma - on the advice of his teacher - kept his training with Ras chung pa secret until Ras chung pa had passed away, since it was bound to be frowned upon for a yogf to have given Tantric teachings to a monk 442 Moreover, the maj ority of B sod nams rin chen's students were them selves Bka ' gdams pa monks, who perhaps came to B sod nams rin chen seeking the oppor tunity to learn Tantric meditation and yoga from a fellow monk, a situation that probably illustrates one of the reasons behind B sod nams rin chen's great renown at the time B sod nams rin chen was personally confronted with these contrasts between the Common Mahayana of the monastic establishment and the sexually-related techniques of the Tantrika subculture, but once he started teaching his own students, he introduced a novelty that made a synthesis of these two streams possible B sod nams rin chen was clear ly an insider of the monastic Bka ' gdams pa movement After having become a Bka ' gdams pa monk, he spent the first five years of his religious career studying and practicing Bka ' gdams pa doctrines with some of the most well-known Bka ' gdams pa teachers of his day He is said to have had success in his practice and to have accomplished the meditations he learned, but still - at the age of thirty - he decided to go to learn from one of the most famous Tibetan Tantrikas of his day, the yogf Mi la ras pa In doing so, B sod nams rin chen chose not to abandon his monastic ordination but to remain a monk His vita may thus be seen as an unusual attempt at bridging the lifestyle of a monk with that of a Tantrika When B sod nams rin chen met his new teacher, Mi la ras pa almost immediately made him practice the Tantric yogas of the second and third empowerment, particularly the practice of Inner Heat (gtum mo), which is one of the yogas associated with the Secret Empowerment It was during the years of solitary meditation after having ended his training with Mi la ras pa that B sod nams rin chen seems to have developed a unique style of practicing the yoga of Inner Heat in combination with the meditation of Mahiimudra Once he settled down on Mt S gam po in the Dags po region, he attracted a large number of students who were searching for this sort of synthesized approach and his hermitage thereby gradually developed into the first Bka ' brgyud monastery S everal of his students went on to fo und new monasteries and Bka ' brgyud subsects of their own 443 In the process thereof, the Tiintrika tradition of Mi la ras pa became institutionalized as a monastic tradition under B sod nams rin chen, and the group of Bka ' gdams pa monks who fo llowed B sod nams rin chen adopted his new style of teaching, which made wider use of Tantric practices than seems to have been the case with the original Bka ' gdams pa tradition 442 See ROBERTS (2007 : , 9) 443 See The Blue Annals (CHANDRA, 974:402-63 ; ROERICH, 949:462-725 ) 64 initiated by Ati fa The outcome was a new school , the Bka ' brgyud tradition, as B sod rin chen's tradition later came to be called, whose teachings offered a union of Tantrism Common Mahayana A certain pattern emerges in B sod nams rin chen's teachings from the various " r • tt°K· texts in the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum that contain his oral sayings As a fo undation, he gave Common Mahayana teachings that he had learned from his Bka ' gdams pa masters, such as explanations on impermanence , actions and their results , the suffering of sar(lsara, and the Resolve for Awakening (bodhicitta) These teachings are, for example, epitomized in his Jewel Ornament of Liberation 444 Further, he combined this fo undation with instructions given directly without Tantric empowerment and Tantric practices An example of such an amalgam of foundational and Mahii.mudra teachings is the Teach ing to the Gathering texts (tshogs chos), which will be summarized below Notably, he did not reserve Mahamudra only for those who had reached the most advanced stage of Tantric practice, which is how Mahii.mudra normally is taught in the Tantric scheme of teachings, but rather he seems to have taught it openly to all his students Since his students did not approach the experience of Mah amudra through the Tantric sexual techniques taught in the Tantras, he instead taught them to gain an experience of Mahamudra by meditating on the teacher and praying for his blessing, viz the practice called guru yoga (bla ma 'i rnal 'byor) In the Tantras , such devotional meditation on the teacher is usually considered an auxiliary practice It does not involve any sexual element and may in the fo rm taught by S gam po pa simply be considered as pertaining mainly to the Generation Stage of Tantric practice permitted by Atifa In such manner, B sod nams rin chen enabled his fo llowers to practice the essence of the Tantras , i e , Mahamudra, without having to engage in the Tantric sexual techniques that had been prohibited by AtiSa Yet, to a small selection of close students, B sod nams rin chen also imparted the full Tantric teachings, including the various yogas associated with the second and third empowerments that he had learned from Mi la ras pa, and some of which, especially the gtum mo meditation, constituted the core of his own meditational practice Perhaps these were students whom he considered already to have achieved an advanced stage of meditation and who accordingly were perhaps permitted to practice all levels of Tantra accordin g to Ati sa's Bodhipathapradfpa as discussed above B sod nams rin chen's Mahii.mudra approach offered a way to practice Tantra while bypassing the more c ontroversial sexual parts of its practice Hence, it seems that he managed to comply with Atifa's view while at the same time managing to break the deadlock on Tantric practice for monks and nuns that Atifa's prohibition had effected 445 444 Concerning the problems of the authorship of this text, see KRAGH (20 c : 8-39 ) 445 I t should, however, be noted that Bsod nams rin chen never directly mentions o r discusses Atifa's prohibition for monastics to engage in Tantric practice in his sayings preserved in the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum The passages in the corpus that come closest to discussing issues related to these problems are segments concerned with analyzing the hierarchy between the three sets of vows (sdom gsum) These passages have been translated and studied by S OBISCH (2002 : 77-2 6) Chapter 4: The Man ifold Sayings of Dags po - B ackground and Transmission 65 His MahiiJnudra doctrine thereby unraveled the division between the Common Mahayana and Ta ntra, offering an alternative for anyone wanting to practice B uddhism on the basis of bo th systems Consequently, his contemplative system became a capstone fo r the m editati on al structure of the Bka ' brgyud traditions, since it allowed practitioners to inte grate Tantrism into the monastic life , given that the ensuing Bka ' brgyud schools developed pri m arily as monastic traditions Later Bka ' brgyud writers on Mahiimudrii developed the doctrine further in a number of w ays, either trying to incorporate other elements from Tantrism or from the Common Ma hiiyiina For example, a maj or later development was to integrate the Common Mahii yiina teachings on tranquility (§amatha) and insight meditation (vipasyanii) as a preliminary step to be accomplished before entering into the actual Mahiimudra practice, as it is, e g , seen i n the Mahamudra works by Sgam po Bkra shis rnam rgyal ( 3- 87), Kun mkhyen Padma dkar po ( 527 - 592), and the ninth Karma pa Dbang phyug rdo rj e ( 55 6- 60 ) Although the explanations o n samatha and vipasyanii given in such works of the sixteenth century seem to be almost a key feature of Tibetan Mahamudra teachings as the living tradition is known today, it is notable that these constitute later developments There is hardly any mention of Samatha and vipasyanii in the Maham udra teachings orally ascribed to B sod nams rin chen Accordingly, it is necessary to delve into the actual contents of the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum, the Manifold Sayings of Dags po, to understand B sod nams rin chen's teachings on their own terms and from within their own textual framework Transmission: Compilation and Printing of The Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum For reading the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum, it is first necessary to gain a clear overview of the different recensions and editions in which the text corpus exists, so that the reading may be based on the best available edition and with proper understanding of the historical point in time and geographical place where the edition was made For this reason, the remainder of the present chapter will provide a thorough overview of the various editions of the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum The corpus of B sod nams rin chen's teachings are found in a Tibetan collection often referred to in the primary literature as the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bum (sometimes also spelled Dags po bka ' 'bum or Dwags po 'i bka ' 'bum), which shall here be translated as The Manifold Sayings of Dags po The meaning of the word Dags po in the title is twofo ld On the one hand, Dags po may be understood as a toponym referring to Dags lha sgam po monastery On the other hand, Dags po may be taken as the epithet of a person referring to "the precious one from Dags po" (Dags po rin po che), i.e , B sod nams rin chen The dual meanings of the title are actually very suitable, because the nature of the textual corpus is such that it contains numerous materials that are not directly relatable to B sod nams rin chen but that in various ways are connected with the Dags Iha sgam po hermitage and the early Bka ' brgyud traditions that originated from that place Yet, the corpus also c ontains a large number of texts that are said to preserve teachings or sayings given orally by B sod nams rin chen and then put into writing by his followers belonging to the first generation of 66 Chapter 4: The Manifold Sayings of Dags po - B ackground and Transmission his students or occasionally by followers who belonged to the second, third, or even fourth generation of later Bka ' brgyud B uddhists Finally, the corpus contains a couple of texts that might be regarded as having been authored in writing directly by B sod nams rin chen himself 44 The issue of the Dags po 'i bka ' 'bu m ' s complex authorships is closely tied to the question of the early compilation history of the corpus, which is a highly intricate matter that shall not be covered in detail in the present book but which is hoped to be the topic of a future publication The starting point for understanding the pertinent textual history is the recognition that the corpus today exists in two very different recensions Firstly, an older recension i s preserved i n the form o f a codex unicus, a single unique manuscript, which I refer t o a s the Lha dbang dpal 'byor manuscript (siglum DK a, i e , "DK alph a " ) 44 The codex is a handwritten so-called 'golden manuscript' written with white ink (possibly c ontaining silver) on black paper Secondly, a younger, more recent recension is found in a series of xylo graphic prints and modern reproductions of the corpus , which all have their prototype in the first printed edition, namely the xylograph produced at Dags Iha sgam po monastery in 520 (siglum DK.A) There are considerable differences between the two recensions with regard to the con tents, the formation of textual units , the arrangement of the materials , the editing of the language, the provision of titles for texts , and the attribution of authorships The differences between the two recensions and the ramifications of these differences have already been discussed elsewhere (KRAGH, 20 l 3c ) To gain deeper understanding of the concrete compilation history of the corpus, a detailed comparative study of the two recensions is required to uncover the different textual layers for the several hundred individual text segments That is a larger project whose findings shall not be presented here, but which will be the topic of a separate publication Instead, the remaining part of chapter four will give a brief overview of the different versions of the texts belonging to both recensions Thereafter, chapter five will present a detailed study and summary of the basic text of the younger and more well-known recension, i e , the printed text of ms DK.A The study and summary is intended to lay a foundation for any future study of the corpus by creating a reference system that clearly identifies and defines all the individual segments of DK.A 446 For a discussion of the problematic authorships found in the corpus, see KRAGH (20 3c : 84391) 447 For a description o f the manuscript, bibliographical details, and the reason fo r the label given to the text, see KRAGH (20 3c : -372) As for the choice of employing a Greek letter as its siglum, this reflect a standard practice in B iblical text critical scholarship, according to which Greek letters are assigned to handwritten manuscripts , whereas Roman letters are given to printed manus cripts The same principle has been adopted here to distinguish sigla for handwritten manuscripts and printed texts ... 'bum that contain his oral sayings As a fo undation, he gave Common Mahayana teachings that he had learned from his Bka ' gdams pa masters, such as explanations on impermanence , actions and their... ras pa almost immediately made him practice the Tantric yogas of the second and third empowerment, particularly the practice of Inner Heat (gtum mo), which is one of the yogas associated with the. .. without Tantric empowerment and Tantric practices An example of such an amalgam of foundational and Mahii.mudra teachings is the Teach ing to the Gathering texts (tshogs chos), which will be summarized