Trisvabhāvanirdeśa

From Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Trisvabhāvanirdeśa (T. rang bzhin gsum nges par bstan pa རང་བཞིན་གསུམ་ངེས་པར་བསྟན་པ་; "Instruction on the Three Natures") is a short treatise by Vasubandhu that explores the Yogacara doctrine of the three natures.[1] This text is one of three short treatises by Vasubandhu that are known for presenting Vasubandhu's understanding of the Yogacara philosophy. (The other two treatises being the Viṃśatikā and the Triṃśikā.)[2]

Karl Brunnhölzl states:

Vasubandhu’s Instruction on the Three Natures was probably his last work and there is no written commentary on it. Thus lacking a recognized line of transmission, unfortunately, this beautiful and profound work is almost never studied or taught in contemporary Buddhist centers of learning. It gives a terse, yet very illuminating, presentation of the three natures and their mutual relations, how delusion manifests and how it is dissolved.[3]

This text consists of 38 stanzas.[1]

Overview

Jay Garfield states:

While Trisvabhāvanirdeśa is arguably the most philosophically detailed and comprehensive of the three short works on this topic (Yogacara) composed by Vasubandhu, as well as the clearest, it is almost never read or taught in contemporary traditional Buddhist cultures or centers of learning. The reason may be simply that this is the only one of Vasubandhu’s root texts for which no autocommentary exists. For this reason, none of Vasubandhu’s students composed commentaries in the text and there is hence no recognized lineage of transmission for the text. So nobody within the Tibetan tradition (the only extant Mahāyāna monastic scholarly tradition) could consider him or herself authorized to teach the text. It is therefore simply not studied, a great pity. It is a beautiful and deep philosophical essay and an unparalleled introduction to the Cittamātra (aka Yogacara) system.
The text introduces the fundamental doctrine of Buddhist idealism and clarifies in remarkably short compass its relations to the other principal doctrines of that school—that all external appearances are merely ideal and originate from potentials for experience carried in the mind. The central topic of the text is the exposition of how this view entails the Cittamātra theory of the three natures, the view that every object of experience is characterized by three distinct but interdependent natures. Vasubandhu’s idealism is distinctive in its insistence that a coherent idealism requires the positing of these three natures, and in its subtle analysis of the complex relations between the natures themselves, involving the thesis of their surface diversity but deep unity.
This text also presents a creative union of ontology and phenomenology. Vasubandhu’s characterization of the status of the objects of experience is at the same time self-consciously a characterization of the character of subjectivity itself. Not only will Vasubandhu argue that we can only make sense of objects if we ascribe to them these three triune natures, but he will argue that a complete account of experience—especially of the experience of a sophisticated and accomplished philosopher or meditator—requires an account of three distinct kinds of subjectivity, which are related to one another as are the three natures themselves. This phenomenology is crucial to the soteriological purport of the system. For this is not speculative philosophy for its own sake, but a philosophical system designed to guide a practitioner to Buddhahood in order that she or he can work to alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings.[2]

Metaphor of the magician's illusion

The Princeton Dictionary states:

Among the most famous passages in the text is the metaphor of the magician’s illusion, in which a magician recites a mantra over a piece of wood that causes the members of the audience to see an elephant in place of the wood.[1]

Vasubandhu used this metaphor to explain the doctrine of the three natures. In this example:[1][2]

  • the elephant seen by the audience is the imaginary nature
  • the appearance of the elephant through the skill of the magician is the other-dependent nature
  • the nonexistence of the elephant is the thoroughly established nature

Translations

In English

  • Ben Connelly, Vasubandhu's “Three Natures”—A Practitioner's Guide for Liberation (Wisdom Publications, 2022)
  • Jay L. Garfield
    • "Vasubandhu's Trisvabhāvanirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures)". In William Edelglass and Jay Garfield (editors), Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings (Oxford University Press: 2009)
    • "Vasubandhu's Treatise on the Three Natures" in Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation, Oxford University Press, 2002
    This translation is available online here: Vasubandhu’s Treatise on the Three Natures
  • Karl Brunnhölzl, Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions, Snow Lion, 2007, pp. 43-53
  • Stefan Anacker, Seven Works of Vasubandhu: The Buddhist Psychological Doctor, Motilal Banarsidass, 2nd Edition, 2002, pp. 287-297
  • Thomas Kochumuttom, A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience: A New Translation and Interpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the Yogācārin, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1982).

In French

  • Philippe Cornu, Vasubandhu, Cinq traités sur l'esprit seulement (Paris: Fayard, 2008).

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Buswell & Lopez 2014, s.v. trisvabhāvanirdeśa.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Garfield 2002
  3. ↑ Brunnhölzl 2007, pages 44-45.

Sources

External links

Retrieved from "https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/index.php?title=Trisvabhāvanirdeśa&oldid=119535"