Book Review: "Brilliant Illumination of the Lamp of the Five Stages (Rim Lnga Rab Tu Gsal Ba'i Strong Me) Practical Instruction in the King of Tantras," the Glorious Esoteric Community by Tsong Khapa Losang Drakpa. Translated by Robert A. F. Thurman.
Author Information University of California, Berkeley
摘要
This is a translation of one of Tsong kha pa's most famous works, his explanation of the final five stages of esoteric yoga culminating in enlightenment, as explained in the Guhyasamājatantra (Thurman's “Esoteric Community”), based on the Pañcakrama (“Five Stages”), a short work in six verse‐chapters attributed to Nāgārjuna. Thurman's introduction and translation is idiosyncratic in parts, and not an easy read, but it displays a stunning familiarity with the material, presented with an enthusiasm that nicely balances more than 150 years of “Euro‐American” negativity, starting with Émile Burnouf's characterization of the Guhyasamājatantra as “odious and degrading in content.” The first part of the translation is a survey of the literature, followed by a general introduction, then chapters on the practices of different levels of the clear light and the māyā‐deha (Tibetan sgyu lus, Thurman's “magic body,” more usually “illusory body”), that finally come together in a natural state at the final, fifth stage of union (yuganaddha) (Thurman's “communion”). There is a final chapter on “conduct heightening impact” that deals inter alia with the place of sexual union in practice. It is an important addition to the growing body of literature on the Buddha Bodies (kāya). Of striking importance is the centrality of the māyā‐deha in a non‐negative view of the otherwise intensely suffering Buddhist world, finding the origins of the material and mental bodies of a Buddha in a deep link between materiality (Thurman's “neural wind‐energy”) and the deepest knowledge of voidness (śunyatā).
