The Word of Chandra
It was no doubt in order to fulfill Mipham Rinpoche's wishes, whether stated or implied, that some of his closest disciples endeavored, after his death, to supplement his work as much as possible by assembling unfinished writings and lecture notes and casting them in a completed form. The collected works
therefore contain a number of posthumous items. These include a commentary on the Mulamadhyamaka-karikas,1 and also the commentary on the Madhyamakavatara included in this volume.
The redaction of The Word of Chandra was made by Kathok Situ Chokyi Gyamtso assisted by Khenpo Kunzang Pelden. Their editorial strategy, however, has not merely been to assemble from the authors notes and unfinished
fragments a complete commentary of Chandrakirtis text. Fortunately, they have also included a number of lengthy passages, connected only indirectly with the root verses, in which Mipham expatiates more generally on Madhyamika and related issues. It is obvious that, as good disciples, the editors were unwilling to omit anything that the master had uttered, and they have done their utmost to include every recorded comment that Mipham made on the different occasions that he taught on the Madhyamakavatara.
It is understandable in such circumstances that the purely formal considerations of elegant arrangement are subservient to the preservation of content. No claim is made that the commentary represents the form that the book might have taken if Mipham Rinpoche had been able to write it out for himself; and it must be admitted that the passages added by the editors to the actual commentary on the root verses have made for a repetitiousness that the author himself
would have undoubtedly abbreviated and streamlined. On the other hand, in view of the importance and difficulty of the material in question, especially for the unfamiliar reader, the frequent reiteration of certain themes is no bad thing. Nevertheless, it seems fair to say that the added passages are liable to create a distorted impression and that certain topics probably did not occupy Mipham's attention to the obsessive degree that the repetitions might
suggest. Because the passages are of intrinsic interest and because the reason for their inclusion at a given point in the commentary is not always obvious, we have marked them by subtitles and indentation. They can thus be easily identified or passed over as the reader wishes. These passages are listed at the end of the table of contents.
The tenor of these passages is polemical, and the object of attack is a series of ideas mainly characteristic of the Gelugpa school. These include questions about the nature of the realization of the Shravakas, the valid establishment of phenomena,1 and the concept of disintegration as a positive
entity.- The most important issue, however, to which Mipham Rinpoche returns again and again, is the Gelugpa presentation of the notion of "true existence.551 Although it is impossible for us to give an adequate assessment of this controversy, we will attempt to outline the positions of Mipham Rinpoche and his opponents as follows.-
One of the most well known features of Je Tsongkhapa's presentation of Madhyamika is its special emphasis on the conventional truth and an insistence that, while the purpose of Madhyamika is to reveal the emptiness of all phenomena, its correct understanding is nevertheless grounded in the commonsense
perceptions of the world. This goes hand in hand with a particular understanding, along realist lines, of logic and epistemology rooted in the interpretation by Chapa Choseng of the teaching of Dignaga and Dharmakirti.-The commonsense experience of the [[external
world]] provides the starting point on the basis of which the mind progresses from the conventional to the ultimate truth. Tsongkhapa seems to have been particularly averse to any approach favoring an idealist or "mind only55 explanation of
experience. Essential to his presentation of Prasangika is the clear identification of the object of negation (dgag bya), which must be distinguished from the basis of negation (dgag gzhi). The basis of negation is the [[Wikipedia:Convention
(norm)|conventional]] phenomenon as it is commonly perceived; the object of negation is the true existence of that phenomenon. Therefore, according to Tsongkhapa, "conventional existence55 and
"true existence55 are to be clearly differentiated. Only the latter is negated by absolutist reasoning, the kind of analysis aiming to establish the ultimate status of phenomena.
In distinguishing true existence from conventional existence, Tsongkhapa's intention was to guard against an exaggeration, a tendency toward a nihilistic interpretation of emptiness. To assert the emptiness of phenomena is not to deny phenomena
completely. Though empty of intrinsic nature, things are not nothing. To acknowledge conventional existence while denying true existence is presumably a way of preserving this important truth, and in the Gelugpa system, it is a crucial point to distinguish一first
intellectually, and eventually by direct experience一the difference in phenomena between the basis of imputation (the conventional phenomenon) and that which is imputed (the truly existent phenomenon).- On the other hand, Tsongkhapa himself
acknowledges that this distinction is so subtle as to be beyond the detection of beginners in the practice. Only on the path of seeing does it become possible for the mind to differentiate clearly the basis of imputation from that which is imputed.
Whatever the merits of this distinction, therefore, it is clear that it is not without its dangers. This is openly acknowledged by many Gelugpas themselves. For as a basis of the path, a distinction is propounded that is perceptible only to those who are far advanced upon that same path. The
majority of people are very far from being able to tell the difference between the mere existence of phenomena and their true existence. It stands to reason, therefore, that to distinguish them and then to insist that only the latter is the object of negation may easily be misconstrued as meaning that
only the "true existence55 of phenomena is refuted and not phenomena themselves. The object of Madhyamika investigation thus becomes a sort of hornlike excrescence superimposed on phenomena, to be refuted by a process of intellectual acrobatics, while phenomena themselves (and with them all the attachments that bind us in samsara) are left unscathed and active. As the great Gelugpa master Jangya Rolpa'i Dorje said:-
Our great intellects these days,
Leave things appearing clearly on one side
And look for hares with horns as something to refute.
Old grandmother- will run away from them!
This and other admonitions by representatives of the Gelugpa tradition suggest that the misinterpretation alluded to was not uncommon. As the reader is about to discover, Mipham Rinpoche attacked it tirelessly as a pernicious distortion that actively hinders the experience of the absence of conceptual
construction,- which alone is the hallmark of the true realization of emptiness. It is clear, however, that Mipham's attack was not directed at Tsongkhapa personally, about whom he invariably speaks in respectful terms. His critique, like that of Gendun Chopel in his Ornament of Nagarjunafs Meaning, is directed at a possible misrepresentation of Tsongkhapas meaning, resulting in what Jeffrey Hopkins refers to as a
pedagogical fault.- The assertion that "the pot is not empty of pot but of true existence55一by someone for whom the distinction between the object of negation and the basis of negation means nothing on the experiential or even intellectual level一far from calling into question the apparent reality of phenomena, tends instead to confirm the deep-rooted habitual belief in substantial reality. In the last analysis, it is a species of realism. It involves a
separation of the two truths and is in practice indistinguishable from Bhavavivekas Svatantrika assertion that phenomena, though empty ultimately, exist according to their characteristics on the conventional level.
Given Mipham's generally positive assessment of Svatantrika, one might have expected him to show a certain leniency in this matter. But he is uncompromising and has no time for what he considers to be a complete aberration. It should be remembered that his remarks are made in the context of the
Madhyamakavatara. And, as tradition dictates, he advocates the view of the author on whose work he is commenting. That is, he takes a strictly Prasangika stance and censures what is, from a Prasangika point of view, an illegitimate procedure. It is a mistake, Mipham says, to claim to be a Prasangika when one
separates the two truths, analyzes the conventional, and so forth. This is, to be sure, the way of the Svatantrikas一and, from Mipham's point of view (as expressed in his commentary on the Madhyamakalankara), they are not at fault, for they distinguish and employ the two kinds of reasoning in relation to
their proper objects. To do otherwise一to use, for example, absolutist reasoning to disprove only what does not exist even conventionally—results in a muddle that obscures the crucial point, namely, the demonstration that phenomena are indeed empty by their nature. As we have seen, that this may have
dangerous consequences was acknowledged not only by Gendun Chopel, admittedly a controversial figure, but also by Jangya and Tendar Lharampa. It has received attention too from Western Gelugpa scholars, some of whom even go so far as to suggest a political dimension to a realistic distortion of the
doctrine of emptiness.- Summing up the issue in the introductory section to his commentary on the Madhyamakalankara, Mipham suggests (possibly not without a smile) that the tendency of Prasangikas in Tibet to lapse inadvertently into the view of the Svatantrikas perhaps reflects a karmic pattern (tendrel) set in motion by the fact that Madhyamika first appeared in Tibet in its Svatantrika form.
