Description: Fifteenth-century Buddhist scholar Gorampa challenged his contemporaries' thinking about the fundamental concept of "emptiness," pioneering an approach that avoided what he critiqued as the traps of eternalism and nihilism. "Freedom from Extremes" is his powerful polemic on the subject. This critical edition of a book renowned for its conciseness, lucidness, and profundity provides students and scholars with direct access to Gorampa's own words. The authors offer illuminating context in an extensive introduction on his life and work, along with an overview of Tibetan polemical literature.
Brief description: The late Geshe Lobsang Dargyay was trained at Drepung Monastery in Tibet. He got his doctorate in Buddhist and Tibetan Studies from the Ludwig Maximilians Universitat and held teaching and research positions in Vienna, Hamburg, and Calgary. Geshe-la was the first Tibetan to receive a doctorate from a Western university. He passed away in 1994.
Review Quotes: "Gorampa Sonam Senge (1429 - 89) is among the the Sakya tradition's greatest scholars, and his works have been considered seminal by many later masters of the school. In his Distinguishing the Views, Gorampa, critiques two divergent interpretations of Middle-Way philosophy: those of the Jonangpa and those of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), whose followers had established doctrinal hegemony in many Tibetan seminaries. Gorampa composed this text early in his career, and its substance presages themes he returned to years later in his summa of the Madhyamaka, the Dgongs pa rab gsal. Gorampa's trenchant criticisms have not lost their power. The Tibetan 'modernist' Gendun Choephel, after reading this long-banned work for the first time in the 1950s, shed tears and uttered high praise for its author. Now with Cabezon and Dargyay's careful translation and notes, Western readers can follow the same discussions, many of which lay at the heart of Tibetan philosophy."--David Jackson, University of Hamburg