Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a useful and sometimes-challenging overview of Mipham's views on Madhyamaka with some big revelations for me, particularly pertaining to his basic posture with regards to the shentong or "emptiness-of-other" doctrine.
This book tries to have it both ways in that it treats a highly specialized topic but also shoots for a broad audience, giving a lot of introductory information on Madhyamaka and its history in India and Tibet. My hunch is that the people who are drawn to this book (like me) aren't going to need the review and are going to get impatient digging through that part of it (like I did).
We need more on Mipham in English. More, more, more. He may be the greatest Tibetan exegete of the last 200 years, an inspiring scholar of staggering genius.
Hey, you! Scholar! I see you working on yet another damned translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika -- put it down! Translate some Mipham instead!
Click Here to see more reviews about: Mipham's Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness: To Be, Not to Be or Neither (Routledgecurzon Critical Studies in Buddhism)
This is an introduction to the Buddhist philosophy of Emptinesswhichexplores a number of themes in connection with the concept of Emptiness, a highly technical but very central notion in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. It examines the critique by the leading Nyingma school philosopher Mipham (1846-1912) formulated in his diverse writings. The book focuses on related issues such as what is negated by the doctrine of emptiness, the nature of ultimate reality, and the difference between 'extrinsic' and 'intrinsic' emptiness. Karma Phuntsho's book aptly undertakes a thematic and selective discussion of these debates and Mipham's qualms about the Gelukpa understanding of Emptiness in a mixture of narrative and analytic style.
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