Meditation on Emptiness (Jeffrey Hopkins)
Dry, Bloated Tome by a Clueless Professor
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Meditation on Emptiness: by Jeffrey Hopkins.]
To be honest, I have next to zero regard for Professor Jeffrey Hopkins' understanding of Buddhism. I see him as a pointy-headed academic teeming with exoteric Buddhist knowledge and devoid of esoteric wisdom. The result is a dry, bloated 1000-page tome on a subject--emptiness--he doesn't really understand. I spent four years studying philosophy and sociology at a putatively top university (UCSD), and years later I realized every one of my professor's was clueless. So a PhD in front of name in philosophy or the social sciences doesn't impress me.
I started studying Buddhism and other schools of mysticism forty years ago, and for a year or so I focused my attention on the Prajnaparamita Sutras. In accordance with the Sutras, I devoted myself to detaching from mind-forms and seeing all dharmas as empty. Eventually, as I also studied and practiced other traditions, it became apparent to me that Madhyamika was a disintegral, exclusive-reductive philosophy. The only way I could rationalize it was as a provisional teaching to free one from attachment to form (s). This was implicit in pop singer Donovan's rhapsody: "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
Dr. Hopkins begins on the wrong foot in his Introduction, where he writes, "Emptiness is the very heart of Buddhist practice in Tibet." In reality, Awareness is, especially in Dzogchen. Emptiness is a derivative concept; it has no ontological status. Without some "thing" to be empty, emptiness is a meaningless Zero. Emptiness can only be an object, and the Dharmakaya is always the universal, transcendental Subject.
Hopkins is wrong when he states, "With one voice all the Mahayana masters proclaim that analysis of objects, and not mere withdrawal of the mind from them is the path to liberation." In fact, plenty of Mahayana and Zen masters enjoin their disciple to desist from such analysis. Hopkins is an exponent of the hyper-intellectual Prasanga-Madhyamika school of Tibetan Buddhism, and his understanding and analysis of Buddha Dharma is colored by his parochial orientation.
Hopkins writes, "The wish to gain liberation cyclic existence is the motivation for entering into analysis of phenomena and attaining realization of emptiness." Contrary to what Hopkins says, Buddhism is NOT about the realization of emptiness; it's about to awakening to one's Buddha-nature which is transcendental, universal Mind. It's about being present and free as timeless, radiant Awareness, the True Self. I also find Dr. Hopkins' epistemology contrary to mine. He writes, "Phenomena depend on thought in the sense that only if the thought that designates an object exists, can that object be posited as existing (conventionally), and if the thought that designates an object does not exist, the (conventional) existence of that object cannot be posited. Since this applies to all objects, nothing exists inherently." From my perspective, objects exist utterly independent of and senior to thoughts.
Unless you're a Buddhist academic who needs to study emptiness, I wouldn't waste time with this book. Instead, check out Dzogchen texts by Namkhai Norbu, Longchen Rabjam, and others.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Meditation on Emptiness: by Jeffrey Hopkins.]
To be honest, I have next to zero regard for Professor Jeffrey Hopkins' understanding of Buddhism. I see him as a pointy-headed academic teeming with exoteric Buddhist knowledge and devoid of esoteric wisdom. The result is a dry, bloated 1000-page tome on a subject--emptiness--he doesn't really understand. I spent four years studying philosophy and sociology at a putatively top university (UCSD), and years later I realized every one of my professor's was clueless. So a PhD in front of name in philosophy or the social sciences doesn't impress me.
I started studying Buddhism and other schools of mysticism forty years ago, and for a year or so I focused my attention on the Prajnaparamita Sutras. In accordance with the Sutras, I devoted myself to detaching from mind-forms and seeing all dharmas as empty. Eventually, as I also studied and practiced other traditions, it became apparent to me that Madhyamika was a disintegral, exclusive-reductive philosophy. The only way I could rationalize it was as a provisional teaching to free one from attachment to form (s). This was implicit in pop singer Donovan's rhapsody: "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
Dr. Hopkins begins on the wrong foot in his Introduction, where he writes, "Emptiness is the very heart of Buddhist practice in Tibet." In reality, Awareness is, especially in Dzogchen. Emptiness is a derivative concept; it has no ontological status. Without some "thing" to be empty, emptiness is a meaningless Zero. Emptiness can only be an object, and the Dharmakaya is always the universal, transcendental Subject.
Hopkins is wrong when he states, "With one voice all the Mahayana masters proclaim that analysis of objects, and not mere withdrawal of the mind from them is the path to liberation." In fact, plenty of Mahayana and Zen masters enjoin their disciple to desist from such analysis. Hopkins is an exponent of the hyper-intellectual Prasanga-Madhyamika school of Tibetan Buddhism, and his understanding and analysis of Buddha Dharma is colored by his parochial orientation.
Hopkins writes, "The wish to gain liberation cyclic existence is the motivation for entering into analysis of phenomena and attaining realization of emptiness." Contrary to what Hopkins says, Buddhism is NOT about the realization of emptiness; it's about to awakening to one's Buddha-nature which is transcendental, universal Mind. It's about being present and free as timeless, radiant Awareness, the True Self. I also find Dr. Hopkins' epistemology contrary to mine. He writes, "Phenomena depend on thought in the sense that only if the thought that designates an object exists, can that object be posited as existing (conventionally), and if the thought that designates an object does not exist, the (conventional) existence of that object cannot be posited. Since this applies to all objects, nothing exists inherently." From my perspective, objects exist utterly independent of and senior to thoughts.
Unless you're a Buddhist academic who needs to study emptiness, I wouldn't waste time with this book. Instead, check out Dzogchen texts by Namkhai Norbu, Longchen Rabjam, and others.
