Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso
Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso, or Mipham Jamyang Namgyal Gyamtso was a very influential philosopher and polymath of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. He wrote over 32 volumes on topics such as painting, poetics, sculpture, alchemy, medicine, logic, philosophy and tantra. Mipham's works are still central to the scholastic curriculum in Nyingma monasteries today. Mipham is also considered to be one of the leading figures in the Rimé movement in Tibet.
Derivation of name
"Ju" was Mipham's family name as his paternal clan is said to have originated as clear light deities who came to the human world holding a rope."Jamgön" indicate that he was considered to be an emanation of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. His maternal uncle, Minister-Lama Drupchok Pema Tarjay, named him Mipham Gyamtso.
In Tibetan literature, the word "mi-pham" is the standard translation of the Sanskrit "ajita", meaning "unconquered", which is a common epithet of the celestial bodhisattva Maitreya.
Biography
Early life
Mipham the Great was born to an aristocratic family in 1846 in the Derge Principality of Kham or Eastern Tibet. He was recognized as an exceptional child from a young age, memorizing texts as early as age six. By the age of ten he had already composed many texts. At twelve, he entered the monastery as an ordinary monk of the Ogmin Urgyen Mindrolling lineage at a branch monastery of the great Nyingma seat Shechen.When he was fifteen or sixteen, after studying the very difficult Mindrolling system of chanting for only a few days and praying to Manjushri, he is said to have completely mastered it. In an 18-month retreat he accomplished the form of Manjushri known as 'Lion of Philosophers', using a liturgy composed by the fifteenth Karmapa, Khakhyab Dorje. He made many medicinal pills blessed with Manjushri's mantra, and many miraculous signs were said to have been manifest. After this, it was said that he could accomplish any sutra or tantra without any effort, and no text was unknown to him. He went to many lamas to obtain the necessary lungs, but he needed no study or teachings for any texts.
Teachers
Mipham was "a luminary of the nineteenth century Nyingma renaissance and Rime movement ecumenical movement, which started in the Kham region of eastern Tibet". As such he received teachings from masters of all lineages Nyingma and Sarma alike. His root gurus were Dza Patrul Rinpoche, from whom he received instruction on Shantideva's Bodhicharyavatara and Dzogchen and the renowned master Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, from whom he received transmission of the orally transmitted or Kama and revealed or Terma lineages, and many other teachings. His other teachers included Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye; Dzogchen Khenpo Padma Vajra; Lab Kyabgon Wangchen Gyerab Dorje; Jubon Jigme Dorje; Bumsar Geshe Ngawang Jungne and Ngor Ponlop Jamyang Loter Wangpo.Philosophy
A key theme in Mipham's philosophical work is the unity of seemingly disparate ideas such as duality and nonduality, conceptual and nonconceptual wisdom, rational analysis and uncontrived meditation, presence and absence, immanence and transcendence, emptiness and Buddha nature. Mimicking the Sarma schools, Mipham attempted to reconcile the view of tantra, especially Dzogchen, with sutric Madhyamaka. This was in departure with the Nyingma school which generally positioned the view of tantra as superior to the view of Madhyamaka.For Mipam, the unity of philosophical views is ultimately resolved in the principle of coalescence, which is the nonduality of conventional and ultimate realities, of samsara and nirvana. Unlike Tsongkhapa who held that emptiness, as an absolute negation, was the definitive reality and view, Mipham sees coalescence of gnosis and emptiness, form and emptiness, etc. as "the ultimate hermeneutical cornerstone of his interpretations".
In his many texts Mipham explores the tension and dialectic that arises between philosophical reasoning of the ordinary mind which is represented by the Madhyamaka philosophy and luminous nonconceptual wisdom, which is the focus of the teachings of Dzogchen. He attempts a synthesis of them to show that they are not incompatible perspectives and that the teachings of Dzogchen are in line with reason.
Two models of the two truths
Mipham developed a twofold model of the Buddhist two truths doctrine. The first model is the traditional Madhyamaka perspective which presents the two truths of emptiness and appearance, with emptiness representing the level of ultimate truth and appearance representing relative truth. In this model the two truths are really the same reality and are only conceptually distinct.In his second model of the two truths, Mipham presents an authentic truth and an inauthentic truth. Authentic experience is any perception that is in accord with reality and perceptions which do not are said to be inauthentic. This differs from the first model because in the first model only emptiness is ultimate while in the second model the ultimate truth is the meditative experience of unitary wisdom. Instead of just being a negation, it includes the subjective content of the cognition of wisdom as well as the objective nature of reality. In this model the ultimate truth is also reality experienced nonconceptually, without duality and reification, which in Dzogchen is termed rigpa, while the relative truth is the conceptual mind.
According to Mipham these two models do not conflict. They are merely different contextually; the first relates to the analysis of experience post meditatively and the second corresponds to the experience of unity in meditative equipose. This synthesis by Mipam is ultimately a bringing together of two different perspectives in Tibetan philosophy, rangtong and shentong, which Mipam associated with the teachings of the second turning and third turning respectively:
The emptiness taught in the middle wheel and the exalted body and wisdom taught in the last wheel should be integrated as a unity of emptiness and appearance. Without dividing or excluding the definitive meaning subject matters of the middle and last wheels, both should be held to be the definitive meaning in the way of just this assertion by the omniscient Longchen Rapjam. - Lion's Roar, exposition of Buddha nature.
For Mipham, both of these teachings are definitive and a middle way between both of them is the best way to avoid the extremes of nihilism and essentialism.
Fourfold valid cognition
Another original contribution of Mipham is his system of fourfold valid cognition which has two conventional and two ultimate valid cognitions:Conventional valid cognitions
- Confined perception, ordinary valid experience
- Pure vision free of distortion
- Categorized Ultimate, emptiness as a negation known by mind
- Uncategorized Ultimate, nonconceptual wisdom
View of buddha-nature
For Mipham, when the buddha qualities appear, it is not that they are newly produced, rather they are merely made manifest. That is, while they seem to be newly arisen, they are in fact primordial endowments. Mipham inherited a distinction from Longchenpa between two types of effects: produced effects, such as when a sprout is produced by a seed; and freed effects, such as when the sun appears after the clouds have vanished. For Mipham, the buddha qualities are freed effects in that they are simply made manifest when the conditions that obscure them have been removed. They are not produced anew.
Work and legacy
As scholar Robert Mayer remarks, Mipham "completely revolutionised rNying ma pa scholasticism in the late 19th century, raising its status after many centuries as a comparative intellectual backwater, to arguably the most dynamic and expansive of philosophical traditions in all of Tibetan Buddhism, with an influence and impact far beyond the rNying ma pa themselves."Scope
In the Introduction to his critical study of the ontological debates between Mipham and his Gelugpa opponents Lopon Karma Phuntsho defines Mipham as a polymath and gives this assessment of the scope of Mipham's work:Mipham's works on both the exoteric or Sutrayana teachings and the esoteric or Vajrayāna teachings have become core texts within the Nyingma tradition. These works now hold a central position in the curriculum of all Nyingma monasteries and monastic colleges — occupying a place of esteem similar to the works of Sakya Pandita and Gorampa in the Sakya tradition; those of Tsongkhapa in the Gelug tradition and of Kunkhyen Padma Karpo in the Drukpa Kagyu. Together with Rongzompa and Longchenpa, Mipham is considered to be one of the three "omniscient" writers of the Nyingma tradition.
Commentaries on Buddhist Śāstra
Although Mipham wrote on a wide range of subjects, David Germano identifies the most influential aspect of Mipham's career in that he "was the single most important author in the efflorescence of Nyingma exoteric literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Grounding himself theoretically in the writings of Longchenpa and other great Nyingma authors, Mipham produced brilliant exegetical commentaries on the great Indian philosophical systems and texts with a Nyingma orientation."E. Gene Smith also judged that Mipham's greatest contribution was "in his brilliant and strikingly original commentaries on the Indian treatises." Prior to Mipham, Nyingmapa scholars "had seldom written detailed pedagogical commentaries on the śāstras of exoteric Buddhism." Until his time the colleges or shedra associated with the great Nyingma monasteries of Kham, such as Dzogchen, Shechen, Kathog, Palyul and Tarthang lacked their own exegetical commentaries on these exoteric Mahayana śāstras, and students commonly studied Gelug commentaries on these fundamental texts. Grounding himself in the writings of Śāntarakṣita, Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo, and Longchenpa, Mipham produced a whole array of brilliant exegetical commentaries on the great Indian philosophical systems and texts that clearly articulated a Nyingma orientation or view.
The texts include his commentaries on the Mulamadhyamakakarika or Fundamental Stanzas on Wisdom by Nagarjuna; the Introduction to the Middle Way of Chandrakirti; the Quintessence of all Courses of Ultimate Wisdom of Aryadeva; commentaries on the major works of the Indian Buddhist logicians Dharmakirti and Dignaga; commentaries on the Five Treatises of Maitreya most notably, the Abhisamayalamkara; commentaries on several works of Vasubandhu including the Abhidharmakosha. Mipham's commentary on the ninth chapter of Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara, the Shertik Norbu Ketaka, "threw Tibetan scholarly circles into several decades of heated controversy," but "it was not the only tempest Mipham's new expositions raised." His commentary on the Madhyamakalamkara of Śāntarakṣita was also considered highly controversial.