Katok Tsewang Norbu


Katok Rigdzin Tsewang Norbu was a teacher of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism who notably championed the shentong or "empty of other" view first popularised by the Jonang school. He also examined the Chan Buddhist teachings of Hashang Mahayana, known as Moheyan. Despite the shentong view being banned as heretical, he successfully taught and cultivated its teachings as a legitimate view of the Nyingma school.
Sonam Deutsen offered to enthrone Rigdzin Tsewang Norbu, when he was 24 years of age, as the Rinpoche of Katok Monastery, but he declined and said he preferred his life as a "vagabond". His seat remained at the Katok Monastery of Tibet.

Scholarly impact

Katok Tsewang Norbu's interests spanned many of the important Nyingma and Kagyu teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, and Bon, including several not associated with the Nyingma schools:
His interest in Chan followed its "defeat" as a teaching in Tibet at the famous 8th century Samye Monastery debate, after which there was even a Cham dance ridiculing Chan, Hashang Mahayana. His interest may have been spurred, according to van Schaik, by Gelug criticism of Nyingma teachings such as Dzogchen as well as against other "simultaneist" teachings of the Sarma schools.

Shentong

After the suppression of the Jonang school, its scholars and its texts and the work of the Sakya scholar Serdok Penchen Sakya Chokden by the 5th Dalai Lama and the Gelug religio-political establishment in the 17th century, shentong views were propagated mainly by Karma Kagyu and Nyingma teachers. In particular, Situ Panchen, the 8th Tai Situpa, and Katok Tsewang Norbu were very instrumental in reviving Shentong among their sects. Katok Tsewang Norbu was the Situ Panchen's teacher, but it was the latter who had a lasting effect on the larger Tibetan Buddhist community. "In the end it would be Situ more than anyone who would create the environment for the widespread acceptance of the Zhentong theories in the next century." This revival was continued by Jamgon Kongtrul, a 19th-century Rimé movement scholar and a teacher of shentong. More recently, the Kagyu Rinpoches Kalu Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche also taught the shentong view.