Tibetan Buddhist Bardo's - comparable to Blavatsky's 'devachan'?

[Katinka Hesselink]

This question is really very specifically for David and Nancy Reigle, our resident Tibetan Buddhism experts, though of course anybody else who wants to chime in is welcome as well. 

I've been getting my baptism in TIbetan Buddhism recently (took refuge, followed a two week FPMT course, expect to be active in the Gelugpa movement a LOT from now on). 

Of course this leaves me with the issue of how to combine what I learned in theosophy with what I'm now learning from Tibetan Buddhist teachers. There are clear discrepancies. 

The main issue, given the importance of the topic, is karma and rebirth.

On the one hand the discrepancy doesn't appear as large as commonly reported, because these teachers insist that while there is no constant, unchanging something that is born again and again, they do insist that there is a stream of consciousness that goes from one life to the next. This is good enough for me, though fitting it on top of our theosophical terminology is perhaps hard. Still, our 'atma-buddhi-higher-manas' is not unchanging either, so perhaps the discrepancy really is only imaginary. Even 'atma-buddhi' isn't unchanging. It's only when we get to atma-proper that the suggestion of something unchanging starts to appear. But if you look at how Blavatsky talks about that, it's definitely at least an option to interpret even atma as changing. 

Anyhow - that's not my question for today. 

When it comes to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it's well known that rebirth is thought to take place within 49 days. What's less well known is that this rebirth is thought to usually NOT take place in the human realm. This is stressed as a stimulus for spiritual practice. After all, as theosophy too agrees, a human rebirth is the desirable kind. 

This rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism can take place in countless heavens, a few hells, as a human being and as an animal. The only disadvantage to those heavens is, as I understand it, (but I'm no expert just yet) that the stay there isn't endless. What if the stay there is generally a few thousand years? Doesn't that make the term of staying there a lot like our devachan? 

In theosophy rebirth (as a human) is said to often taken thousands of years too - because we spend most of our time contemplating the good of our last life (my interpretation of devachan). In short: a sort of self-created heaven. 

Blavatsky too stresses that it would be preferable to, as the real practitioners do, skip or shorten devachan and simply be reborn as quickly as possible - to not take a break, to go on working for the benefit of humanity. 

I wonder - does putting it like that put too much strain on theosophy or Tibetan Buddhism, or is it really a way to bring together two seemingly conflicting accounts of what happens after death? 

[David Reigle]

As far as I know, no one has published an identification of the Buddhist text that is quoted at the beginning of Mahatma letter #16 (chronological #68), the "devachan" letter. I had hoped to do so earlier, when I said on Sep. 10 that it is the shorter Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra, but could not until now. As I then mentioned, the translation given in the Mahatma letter is adapted from the 1871 translation by Samuel Beal in A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, pp. 378-381. Beal prefaces this with "Translated from the Chinese version of Kumarajiva, as it is found in the Shan-mun-yih-tung" (p. 378), and this latter is the title quoted in the Mahatma letter. Beal had earlier (p. 374) said that this extract is to be given "from the Sutra known as the Wu-liang-sheu-king, in which we have a full account of the Sukhavati, or Paradise in the West, over which Amitabha is supposed to preside." Before that (p. 373), Beal had said about Amitabha that "his title is 'Wu-liang-sheu,' and a Sutra bearing this title was one of the earliest translated into Chinese." So we can easily deduce that the Wu-liang-sheu-king is the Amitabha Sutra. It is this that is found in the Shan-mun-yih-tung, from which Beal translated it, and from there it was quoted and adapted in Mahatma letter 16. So what are these texts?

 

Today it is common knowledge, findable even on Wikipedia, that the Amitabha Sutra is a popular name for the shorter Sukhavati-vyuha sutra. But this was not known when Beal wrote. He had earlier published his "Translation of the Amitabha Sutra from Chinese" in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, for 1866 (pp. 136-144). There we learn what the Shan-mun-yih-tung is. Beal begins his translation by saying: "The Amitabha Sutra. Extracted from the work called "Shan Mun Yih Tung," or Daily Prayers of the Contemplative School of Priests" (p. 140). He had a few pages earlier introduced it as follows (p. 136): "The following translation of the Amitabha Sutra is made from the Chinese edition of that work, prepared by Kumarajiva, and bound up in a volume known as the 'Daily Prayers of the Buddhist Priests belonging to the Contemplative School' (Shan-mun)" (p. 136). In other words, Beal had translated the shorter Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra, popularly called the Amitabha Sutra, as it is found included in a prayer book called the Shan-mun-yih-tung. Since the Mahatma letter had quoted and adapted this material from Beal's 1871 Catena, this letter naturally quoted this material as from the Shan-mun-yih-tung:

 

"The Devachan, or land of 'Sukhavati,' is allegorically described by our Lord Buddha himself. What he said may be found in the Shan-Mun-yih-Tung. Says Tathagata:--"

 

But of course, Beal does not use the word "devachan," because this is the Tibetan translation of Sukhavati, and Beal was translating from Chinese. The writer of the Mahatma letter put the word "devachan" in Beal's translation as it was there adapted: "there is a region of Bliss called Sukhavati . . . This, O Sariputra is the 'Devachan.'" So this Mahatma writer knew that devachan translates or is equivalent to sukhavati. He added this word to Beal's translation in place of sukhavati.

 

Now, critics like William Emmette Coleman might say that this Mahatma writer, i.e., HPB in his view, copied this knowledge from Emil Schlagintweit's 1863 book, Buddhism in Tibet, where we read on pp. 100-101:

 

"The happy region Sukhavati, where thrones Amitabha, lies towards the west. In Sanskrit it is called Sukhavati, 'abounding in pleasures;' in Tibetan Devachan, 'the happy;' . . ."

 

However, HPB seems to have been unaware of the fact that devachan is a Tibetan word. In The Key to Theosophy, in answer to the question, "what is Devachan?" she replies, "The 'land of gods' literally" (p. 100), and gives in the glossary to this book: "Devachan (Sans.) The 'Dwelling of the Gods.'" This same definition, also citing it as a Sanskrit word, was repeated in The Theosophical Glossary by HPB, published posthumously three years later. This idea apparently came from another Mahatma letter, #69, in which we read: "The meaning of the terms Devachan and Deva-loka, is identical; "chan" and "loka" equally signifying place or abode." This Mahatma writer, perhaps in fact HPB here, does not show knowledge of the equivalence of devachan and sukhavati, as in Mahatma letter #16.

 

HPB told us clearly, in a letter first published by Jinarajadasa in the Introduction to the 1923 book, The Early Teachings of the Masters, that she did the actual writing of most of the Mahatma letters. She put in them what the Mahatmas told her to write; and in some cases, she explained, she was asked to answer for them or on their behalf. This could be such a case. There are many such in the Mahatma letters. It is not true that "chan" means "place" or "abode." As I have earlier posted, the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit word sukhavati is the Tibetan word "bde ba can." The "can" or "chan" is the possessive suffix, meaning "having" or "possessing." It translates the "vat" or "vati" in sukhavati. There is no Sanskrit or Tibetan word "chan" that means "place" or "abode." It is unfortunate that the actual derivation of devachan was not made clear to HPB by the Mahatma writer of letter #16, who knew at very least that devachan translates or is equivalent to sukhavati. Now, this error has been perpetuated by Theosophists who followed her in this, right up to the present.

 

The original Sanskrit text of the Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra was discovered in China and was first published in 1883. A considerably improved edition was published in 1965. Both of these Sanskrit editions are posted on this website. The first English translation made from the Sanskrit, by F. Max Muller, was published in the book, Buddhist Mahayana Texts, as Sacred Books of the East, vol. 49, in 1894. This is no doubt available online now. In 1996 a new translation was published, made by Luis O. Gomez, under the title, The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light.

[Katinka Hesselink]

Thanks - that is again helpful. In the last paragraph you refer to having published sutras on 'this website' - is that theosophy.net or did you publish them elsewhere? Do give the URL.

[David Reigle]

Go to the "main" page of The Theosophical Network. At top center you will see "Sanskrit Documents." Click on "Buddhist Documents." Scroll down to "sukhavativyuha_sutra."

[Katinka Hesselink]

Right, thanks.

[Hannes Frischat]

If I may, here are three contributions regarding the life as animals:

- First, our lower upadhis decay after death, and in several steps. They are in a constant process of diffusing to other beings which is already active during our life, and this process continues after death. Science talks about dynamic equilibrium or flux balance - a concept that may be very helpful for many problems.

- Second, we have many animal monads in us that help maintaining our body (bodies), and when they are released they can begin another life. And why should not some of them then live a life as an animal instead of serving a human being.

- Third, the six realms of beings as represented in the bhavachakra could (as a thought) in analogy be applied to the human state, too. The animal realm would represent humans that begin to train their will by trying to achieve happiness and avoid pain with their regard mainly directed to maintaining own and familiar survival, and so on.

[Miguel Asuncion Casadeus]

An HPB factoid (Editorial comment on W.W.Westcott's Alchemy, Lucifer, Dec. 1889, p. 294):

"The cycle of the 46 Fires, the period between death and new rebirth, on Devachan. The cycle of the 49 Fires is the period between two manvantaras".