Tags: Dolpopa

What Is / Isn’t Rangtong?

Dolpopa, like many great Tibetan scholars, was interested in making distinctions. Within his writings, we find several terse compositions that employ rich Buddhist lingo in order to succinctly and deliberately…

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Expressions of the Essence

Buddhist phenomenology tells us that one of the five fundamental constituents of the egoic complex is “form” (rūpa, gzugs), the configuration of tangible materiality that is so integral to ordinary…

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Dolpopa’s Experience

With “expressions of emptiness” on my mind, I thought it might be nice to reflect on Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen’s experience of this quintessential phenomena, and how this experience acted as…

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“Wheel of Time” III

Now that we have a rough sketch of Dolpopa’s concept of time according to Kālachakra cosmology, we can begin to think about what Dolpopa and later Jonangpas refer to as…

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“Wheel of Time” II

Continuing to think about time, I’d like to consider the architecture of cosmic time according to the Kālachakra Tantra, and how this temporal schema was further codified by Dolpopa Sherab…

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“Wheel of Time” I

Lately, I’ve been thinking about time. Time in the cliché sense of that which “does not stop for anyone.” Historical time. Real time. Blinks and breathes and heart-beats. The wax…

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The “Other” Emptiness

The technical Tibetan term “zhentong” (gzhan stong, often mis-phoneticized “shentong”) suggests a particular view of reality, one that can be misconstrued due to the word itself. To give a simple…

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The First Jonangpa

Throughout my readings on the Jonangpa in English, I’ve noticed the (all too) common attribution of either Yumo Mikyo Dorje or Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen as the “founder” of the Jonang…

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