Serdok Penchen Sakya Chokden (gser mdog pan chen shakya mchog ldan, 1428–1507) (also transliterated as ''Shakya Chogden'') was one of the most important religious thinkers of the

Sakya The ''Sakya'' (, 'pale earth') school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug. It is one of the Red Hat Orders along with the Nyingma and Kagyu. Origins Virūpa, 16th century. It depic ...

school of

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

. He was a student of Rongtön Shecha Kunrig (1367-1449), Dönyö Pelwa, Künga Zangpo and many other Tibetan scholars.Komarosvski, Yaroslav. ''Visions of Unity: The Golden Pandita Shakya Chokden's New Interpretation of Yogacara and Madhyamaka'', SUNY 2011, page 4. He also received empowerments and studied under several Kagyu lineages. Sakya Chokden's seat was the Thubten Serdogchen monastery in south Shigatse.

Philosophy

Sakya Chokden broke from Sakya orthodoxy and wrote a highly critical commentary to

Sakya Pandita Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen (Tibetan: ས་སྐྱ་པཎ་ཌི་ཏ་ཀུན་དགའ་རྒྱལ་མཚན, ) (1182 – 28 November 1251) was a Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist scholar and the fourth of the Five S ...

's "A thorough differentiation of the three vows" posing over 100 questions to Sakya scholars on this text. This event caused some controversy and Chokden answered his own questions in his subsequent "Golden lancet". Sakya Chokden's ''Definite ascertainment of the middle way'' criticized

Tsongkhapa Tsongkhapa ('','' meaning: "the man from Tsongkha" or "the Man from Onion Valley", c. 1357–1419) was an influential Tibetan Buddhist monk, philosopher and tantric yogi, whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school of Tibetan Budd ...

's Madhyamaka views as being too logo-centric and still caught up in conceptualization about the ultimate reality which is beyond language.Leaman, Oliver d. Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy; Sakya Chokden In his later years, Sakya Chokden moved away from a strictly Prasangika Madhyamika view (as held by

Chandrakirti Chandrakirti (; ; , meaning "glory of the moon" in Sanskrit) or "Chandra" was a Buddhist scholar of the madhyamaka school and a noted commentator on the works of Nagarjuna () and those of his main disciple, Aryadeva. He wrote two influential w ...

) and adopted a kind of

Shentong ''Rangtong'' and ''shentong'' are two distinctive views on emptiness ( sunyata) and the two truths doctrine within Tibetan Buddhism. ''Rangtong'' (; "empty of self-nature") is a philosophical term in Tibetan Buddhism that is used to distinguis ...

(emptiness of other) view influenced by the works of Asanga,

Vasubandhu Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Buddhist monk and scholar from ''Puruṣapura'' in ancient India, modern day Peshawar, Pakistan. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary ...

and

Maitreya-nātha Maitreya-nātha (c. 270–350 CE) is a name whose use was pioneered by Buddhist scholars Erich Frauwallner, Giuseppe Tucci, and Hakuju Ui to distinguish one of the three founders of the Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy, along with Asanga ...

. His later work attempted to reconcile the philosophies of

Yogacara Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through ...

and

Madhyamaka Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhi ...

as valid and complementary perspectives on Ultimate Truth. Chokden saw the Yogacara "Alikakaravada" view as also being a form of Madhyamaka because it holds that mental objects are ultimately unreal or false (''alika'') and worked to prove its compatibility with the Madhyamaka Nihsvabhavavada view (emptiness of inherent existence). Madhyamaka is seen by Chokden as removing the fault of taking the unreal as being real, and Yogacara removes the fault of the denial of Reality. Likewise, the

and Rangtong views are seen as complementary by Sakya Chokden; Rangtong negation is effective in cutting through all clinging to wrong views and conceptual rectification while Shentong is more amenable for describing and enhancing meditative experience and realization. Therefore, for Sakya Chokden, the same realization of ultimate reality can be accessed and described in two different but compatible ways. Sakya Chokden held that this view was more in concordance with

Vajrayana Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

teachings and Tantras. Perhaps his most controversial view was that Ultimate reality or Primordial Mind is an impermanent phenomenon and that this is supported by Yogacara, Sutra and Tantra.Komarosvski, Yaroslav. ''Visions of Unity: The Golden Pandita Shakya Chokden's New Interpretation of Yogacara and Madhyamaka'', SUNY 2011, page 14. Since his views conflicted with those of

, they were not well received by the Sakya school. In the 17th century, followers of the politically dominant

Gelug 240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodhgaya (India). The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous")Kay, David N. (2007). ''Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantati ...

school proscribed his writings and shut down the printery where his works were kept.

Works

*Good Questions about the ‘Thorough Differentiation of the Three Types of Vows.’ *Golden Lancet: Resolved Abundant Discourse on the ‘Thorough Differentiation of the Three Types of Vows’ Treatise. *Garlands of Waves of Assertions *Great Path Compressing the Two Chariot Ways into One: Explanation of aitreya's‘Ornament of Clear Realizations’ Together with aribhadra's‘Clear Meaning’ Commentary. *Ocean of Scriptural Statements and Reasoning *Definite ascertainment of the middle way *Profound Thunder amidst the Clouds of the Ocean of Definitive Meaning: Differentiation of the Two Systems of the Great Madhyamaka Deriving from the Two Great Chariot Ways *Rain of Ambrosia: Extensive uto-ommentary on the ‘Profound Thunder amidst the Clouds of the Ocean of Definitive Meaning.’ *Great Path of Ambrosia of Emptiness: Explanation of Profound Pacification Free from Proliferations *Guiding Instructions on the Madhyamaka View *Abbreviated Meaning of the ‘ evajra inTwo Chapters’

References

Sources

*Komarovski, Yaroslav. ''Radiant Emptiness'', Oxford University Press 2020 *Komarovski, Yaroslav. ''Echoes of empty luminosity: Reevaluation and unique interpretation of Yogacara and Nihsvabhavavada Madhyamaka by the fifteenth century Tibetan thinker Sakya mchog ldan'', Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia (2007). *Komarovski, Yaroslav. ''Visions of Unity: The Golden Pandita Shakya Chokden's New Interpretation of Yogacara and Madhyamaka'', SUNY 2011 *Shakya Chokden, ''Three Texts on Madhyamaka'', trans. Komarovski Yaroslav, Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2002 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sakya Chokden 1428 births 1507 deaths Scholars of Buddhism from Tibet Madhyamaka Sakya lamas Tibetan philosophers

Philosophy

Works

See also

References

Sources