Note: This is a prepublished version of a paper published as: Wrapping Your Own Head: Problems of Context and Individuality as Pre- and Post-considerations for Translating “The Path of Ultimate Profundity: The Great Seal Instructions of Zhang,” a Twelfth-Century Tibetan Verse Compendium of Oral Instructions on Mahāmudrā. Contained in: Enrica Garzilli, ed., Translating, Translations, Translators: From India to the West, Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, new series vol. 1, The Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies (Cambridge 1996), pp. 59-73. I recommend you make reference to the original publication. For a scan, try HERE. (Dropbox link has been dropped, unfortunately, July 2014).
Wrapping Your Own Head
Problems of Context and Individuality as Pre- and Post-considerations for Translating "The Path of Ultimate Profundity, The Great Seal Instructions of Zhang", a Twelfth-century Tibetan
Verse Compendium of Oral Instructions on Mahāmudrā.
Dan Martin (Cambridge/Jerusalem)
I was never one to let myself be led by the nose-ring.
--Zhang Rinpoche
Individuality, as a complex of independence, self-assertion, personal initiative, originality and creativity, is a vexed question in Asian studies. There have been several publications during the last two decades on individuality (and 'agency') in South Asia, with some interesting arguments and insights, although we will not be discussing them here. Rather, we will approach the issue focussing on a particular person, our author Zhang Rinpoche, in his particular context. Definitions of 'individuality' are plastic in the sense that their boundaries are often strategically adjusted in order to continue to include us, and exclude others, rather like what Joseph Needham has termed Face-Saving Re-definitions (objects are not really what they are until they correspond more closely to the form in which we possess them, or think we possess them). Among the best examples of this are definitions that insist on a component of egalitarianism. This is an excellent trick, to make an unrealized goal a necessary component of a definition. Then we go on to take other peoples', probably also unrealized, goals as the basis for contrast, in effect telling them, 'Your ideals speak more loudly to us than your actions.' It is a similar case with definitions of 'nationalism'. If any non-western group of the pre-colonial period is demonstrated to suit the existing definition, it is a simple matter to add a few more requirements for what 'true' nationalism must be. Hence the relatively simple working definition of 'individuality' we have given.
I want to stress at the outset that in the published version I did not comment on any general or obvious problems of translation, except to brush them off in a footnote. Now, after hearing and reflecting on a few comments from readers, I think certain problems of representing authorial style could have been addressed with some profit in the introduction; what I have to say today is a partial attempt to make up for my omissions.
I will begin by doing what I believe philology, in the old pregnant sense of the word, does best and look carefully and slowly (even if briefly) at a particular term in a particular context. In our author Zhang Rinpoche's work Path of Ultimate Profundity, the longest chapter, chapter eight, entitled "On Action", in a passage that he will soon characterize as 'heart talk' ('intimate conversation'), and in the context of his considerations on "non-meditation yoga", the fourth and highest of the four yogas of Mahāmudrā, he allows his formal, relatively technical, tone to break down into a colloquial style that is both personal and specifically 'Tibetan'. He says,
In the non-meditation yoga, meditative equipoise
and post-meditation are both simply Dharma Body.
I do not have the mouth for a great deal of talk.
I do not have the mouth for swallowing dry tsampa.
Do not wrap up your own head.
Now, tsampa is the staple of traditional Tibetan diet, flour made from dry-roasted barley which is usually eaten only after being moistened and kneaded with hot buttered tea. To swallow it dry is an effective metaphor for being 'all choked up' and unable to speak of the ultimate in yogic experience. My translation "Do not wrap up your own head" is overly conservative, and could have been rendered, 'Don't engage in self-suffocating (i.e. self-defeating) behavior (by attempting to characterize the ultimate experience)'.
By narrowing our focus to the single expression "own head" an elusive light angles in to modify our understanding a bit. "Own head" is an essential ingredient in several colloquial expressions in use nowadays (we are uncertain about their histories, although they are not 'modern', and one has been noted in an early nineteenth-century work of Gung-thang-pa which is a rare transcribed conversation in Amdo dialect). These expressions emphasize precisely individual initiative and self-power. Among these expressions, which are generally deployed with a strong sense of approval, are the following, in very-literal translated form: "ability to stick out ones own head", "to try to pull out ones own head" (meaning to take responsibility and go about solving things oneself), and "to cover ones own head with ones own skin" (rang mgo rang lpags-kyis 'thum-pa). The last phrase, which uses a verb-form related to the [obsolete] verb-form used in Zhang's expression, is defined in a modern Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary as meaning, "a metaphor for being able to support oneself with ones own resources without needing to turn to others." The putting forward of ones own head is, of course, the conceptual near-opposite of another Tibetan phrase, mgo gnon-pa, which means literally 'pressing down the head', but in usage means 'suppressing or oppressing'. Perhaps not needless to say, the Tibetan words for 'head', like the English word, are commonly used to mean 'leadership' and so forth. After such careful considerations, we might be tempted to translate the line from Zhang's work as "Don't smother your own independence," implying in the context, perhaps ironically, that the ultimate experience is something that requires individual confirmation and expression. A fuller study of these expressions in their historical dimensions will have to wait, but meanwhile I will just stick out my head and say that on the popular, informal level, individual initiative and resourcefulness have been positively evaluated and encouraged by Tibetans.
We should note here also other expressions for independence. Rang-rkya or rang-skya means independence in the sense of being able to stand on ones own two feet. Rang-dbang and rang-btsan are words used by Tibetan nationalists, often rendered 'self-determination'. There is also, nowadays, the relatively innocuous-sounding expression rang-skyong, 'self-governance' or 'autonomy' which occurs in the official name "Tibetan Autonomous Region" or T.A.R. All these words begin with the syllable rang, which is used to form reflexive (often self-referential) expressions. Note also rang-bzo, used as both adjective and noun, and always in negative light, to mean most literally, 'of ones own manufacture or creation' (which might be translated '[simply] made up').
Zhang Rinpoche, in both his life and his writings, was clearly one who very often stuck his own head out, and this is reflected both in his life as told in his autobiography, a near-contemporaneous biography, and in his literary style. I had read Zhang's Path about ten years before I returned to it and found the courage to begin to translate it. Meanwhile I read eleventh- to twelfth-century literature of all sects: the Bonpo, Nyingmapa, Kadampa, and Sakyapa, as well as Zhang's Kagyupa sect. What I came to find was not a uniformity of approach and thought, but rather differing approaches to Buddhism that had a great deal of trouble approaching each other. These different perspectives gradually crystallized in my mind as four distinct 'types' of Buddhists which cannot be simply reduced to sectarian perspectives. Each 'type' starts with a view on what constitutes the main thing in which one ought to immediately engage. Those who advocate first and foremost devotion, I call 'devotion-based' Buddhists. If scholastic learning is foregrounded, I call it 'learning-based'. If deliberate cultivation of compassion is asserted to be the main thing, I call it 'cultivation-based'. Those who first and foremost advocate meditation, I would call 'meditation-based'.
Taking the middle decades of the twelfth century as the basis, I could point to Phya-pa Chos-kyi-seng-ge as an ideal proponent of the 'learning-based' approach, to 'Chad-kha-ba (author of the single most-frequently translated Tibetan composition, Seven-point Mind Training) as a proponent of 'cultivation-based' Buddhism, and for an exemplary proponent of 'meditation-based' Buddhism, I can point to no better example than Zhang Rinpoche himself, although generally speaking he is in this quite true to his Kagyupa predecessors. I would like to spend some time illustrating with several quotes the early Kagyupa emphasis on the primacy of meditation.
In the Responses to Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa (pp. 124-5), Sgam-po-pa carefully distances his approach from that of the learning-based Buddhists,
Generally speaking, there are two styles at work in religion. These two are the 'philosophical', which is effective for knowing/perceiving, and the 'realizational' which is effective for attainment. The activities of learning and pondering in themselves constitute a method, but this must not turn into a method for facilitating afflictive emotions. This would be to cut off the goal of knowing, and at bottom it is of no help. … One needs to forget all the technical terms of the treatises. Those whose learning is extensive are acute in words, but obtuse in meanings. Their talents turn into faults.
We need to be precise about the sort of understanding that Sgam-po-pa and Zhang Rinpoche discount as insufficient. It is, first of all, textual understanding — texts being the 'societies of words' (tshig tshogs, which in the published translation I translated 'clumps of words') pursued for their own sake without reference to any meaning outside themselves, but rather viewed exclusively along the lines of the internal interrelationships of the terms and categories. Zhang Rinpoche's Path of Ultimate Profundity says,
Uttering societies of words such as these does not touch on it.
Societies of words, however acute and profound,
have been pronounced in many accounts,
but are incapable of touching the real condition of mind.
Naturally, Zhang acknowledges his own text to be a 'society of words',
Do not mull over these expressions of mine.
Understand they are like the finger that points out the moon.
Knowing this, the societies of conventional words
won't get in the way, won't veil understanding with verbal faults.
So, without giving up words and investigations,
take pride in the meaning and don't get attached.
He is not opposed to study —he has some good words for learning — only to philological fixations that end up in a pride (intellectual mastery or authority as an end in itself) that obstructs further comprehensions. Notice the good words he has to say for learning found near the end of the Path of Ultimate Profundity,
Religious people in these bad times of the present
have little of the inner discipline that comes from study.
Even those who are learned in societies of words
have not realized their significances.
In the future, their proud contentions will increase.
The revered Lamas of the accomplishment transmission
pursued meanings and became accomplished.
Permanently renouncing such things as pride,
understanding meanings was the only skill
in scriptural authority and reasoning they required.
In short, neither verbal expression (philology) nor mental investigation (philosophical theorizing, etc.), nor even scriptural exegesis, touch on the real condition. They fall short of the mark. He says,
While falling short of the mark does not mean an end to development,
following what has not entered deep within will give rise to dis-ease.
Those contemplators who have mastered mind-made philosophies
will be invaded by the chronic disease of partiality.
According to the Mahāmudrā tradition of the early Kagyupa, the unfoldment of the meditative life culminates in the realization of the actual condition of mind, which is in itself sufficient. They prefer the meditative to the phenomenological approach, since the *objective* 'phenomenological' Dharma Proper (Chos-nyid) is taken care of by the meditative realization of *subjective* Mind Proper (Sems-nyid). Phag-mo-gru-pa, as cited in a work by his student 'Jig-rten-mgon-po (Works, vol. 4, p. 408), said:
The learned scholars cut away the veils [of words] with words and establish the objects of knowing... Make forests into pens, oceans into ink, land into paper, and still there would be no end to their writing. Yogins do not establish external objectivities; they establish the mind. The mind established, its objects establish themselves.
Sgam-po-pa says (Responses to Phag-mo-gru-pa, p. 51), in answer to a question about whether the Great Seal teachings differentiate Dharma Proper and Mind Proper,
They are the same. The light of mind is Dharma Proper, so through realization of Mind Proper, Dharma Proper realization is taken care of [or, loosens its own bonds] ... Meditating exclusively on the substance of mind is sufficient.
Other Buddhists (meaning especially Sa-skya Pandi-ta in the early thirteenth century, but also some earlier dialecticians of Gsang-phu Ne'u-thog Monastery) would take issue with this idea of the self-sufficiency of meditation, but I doubt that any would deny its importance. Again, this is a matter of priorities, of what ought to be done first.
While Zhang Rinpoche was, in this rather 'radical' view, apparently only a follower of his own tradition, perhaps even, we could say, 'determined by his context', when we turn to works in his literary corpus, we find strong testimony of his literary and intellectual 'originality', particularly in his autobiographical writings.
Now just the word 'autobiography' ought to set certain trains of thought to work. I don't have time to go into any of the problematic of autobiography in this context, but I would like to refer those interested to a recent, very thoughtful treatment of the Tibetan autobiographical genre by Prof. Janet Gyatso, now teaching at Amherst. While autobiographies as sources for historical and other insights are a problem for us, they also present problems for those who write them. In the opening words of Zhang's main autobiography entitled Sher-grub-ma, composed in 1166, we find the following apology.
Generally, to tell one's own life story oneself is against tradition. It is not the proper thing to do. It is not in keeping with the Dharma. One may see how certain worthy scholars such as noble Nāgārjuna, out of consideration either for a few of their disciples or for people in general, composed many words about their distant childhoods. Nevertheless, I have not told my own biography in order to brag. My students must repeat the truth, and since there is an endless array of types of persons, if this biography brings benefit to just a few of them, those benefits will not be brought to an end until the end of becoming. Therefore, if it is shown to others, aside from those few whose thoughts have imposed upon me an image of perfection, it will surely result only in criticism and condemnation. This will contaminate your own mental stream and, having accumulated the gravest of sins, you will cause your own descent into the hells. Hence the great importance of not showing this to others. It is my feeling that there is probably no harm in telling it with the hope of benefitting the very few.
It is intriguing to consider how, after saying that autobiography-writing is not the thing to do and citing a dubious precedent (Janet Gyatso doesn't find any connected autobiographies by Indian Buddhists), Zhang nevertheless goes on to write at length the story of his life. Ironically, while written as he says for 'those whose thoughts have imposed on me an image of perfection', the autobiography itself is full of confessions of his imperfections. To give an example from his childhood,
Despite my great faith, I took minnows from the freshwater spring, killed, and ate them. I even swallowed a live one whole. I cut off the rear of a meat fly, stuck a flower in its place, and sent it flying. I think that the fact that I am now poor and my good looks are not obvious is as a karmic result of these deeds. My faith and my faults formed sides, and many were the occasions when they contradicted each other.
Later on, as a mature young man, he several times resorted to goat sacrifices in order to work evil spells against his enemies, even once after he had taken the vows of a Buddhist lay person. The Rgyal-blon-ma (p. 225), written by his student, says that he successfully performed magic, with no reference to goat slaying. This is but one of several places where the Rgyal-blon-ma is reticent about details that could place the teacher in a bad light. The point is that Zhang Rinpoche is not so reticent.
If we look at his record of his early education, his mother, who had been a nun before she married, encouraged his studies. Already at the age of five, he was giving short religious discourses and recitations in front of the assembly of nuns with whom his mother continued her association. He was exposed, as a young teenager, to some classics of Madhyamaka and other Buddhist philosophies, but he was not widely read in this area, and unlike many of his contemporaries he studied little if any Sanskrit. He says, "I studied much of the Abhidharma with the teacher Sam-bu Lo-tsā-ba, as well as the Pramāṇavārtika, the Five Paths, the Sūtrālaṃkāra and other texts. I did not understand them."
In about 1148, in a depressed state of mind that bordered on the suicidal, he took monastic vows, and spent most of the following 18 years until his composition of the Path of Ultimate Profundity in solitary or nearly-solitary meditation retreats in mountain caves and hermitages.
We have already seen some evidence for Zhang's assessment of the value of verbalizations. In the Sher-grub-ma, he several times displays his impatience with other people's verbalizations. About one retreat which he had to share with several other meditators, he said,
Their chatter and conversation had nothing in common with their deeper intentions. … I did not see a single one who recognized their own faults. I did not see even one who looked upon their faults as faults and tried to do something about them. If I told them, 'I noticed such and such a thing,' they would say, 'How can that possibly be true?' and go on accumulating sin. … I had many such 'elders' for companions. When one of them would act so as not to lose reputation, they would become ugly to me.
From his teenage years, he viewed ritual proprieties in a similar light. According to the Rgyal-blon-ma biography written soon after his death, he believed that receiving or not receiving ritual initiations was not in itself important (a view he had in fact expressed in the Path of Ultimate Profundity). Then he witnessed a dhāraṇī ritual performed by a nun without regard for the ritual directions, which was nevertheless successful in healing the sick client. Later, in his twenties in Khams, he did thread-cross and fire rituals 'from memory', without instruction as to the proper procedures, which nonetheless were efficacious. These experiences convinced him that, in general, regardless of how the rituals are carried out, the 'words of truth' are what really make them work.
"Words of truth" will be a concept familiar to Indologists, but here I believe Zhang intends a 'true declaration of heart-felt intention.' This lack of confidence in the formal structures of initiatic and other rituals, while it does occur, is not at all usual among Tibetan monks, who lay great store in precedence. The usual attitude is that if one follows the directions laid down in the texts by past masters it will be sufficient to achieve the desired result.
In both ritual action and verbalization, however, Zhang is not an anarchist. He does respect the past, and particularly the past of his own tradition. But he does at the same time leave open the possibility for direct and even unprecedented expressiveness in word and deed. By just looking at the forms and genres of his literary output, we may demonstrate that Zhang put these attitudes into practice. He not only composed several autobiographical works, he was probably the first Tibetan to do so at any length. He wrote in unorthodox verse forms, such as this sample in a highly unusual metre which I have tried to reproduce, from a piece entitled 'Twelve and a Half Crippled Verses' (what follows is only partial).
Directions: known.
Business: given up.
Retreat: staying.
Put into practice. Astounding!
Staying alone.
Devoted to meditation.
Anxieties: few.
Preserving experiences. Astounding!
Relaxed and unwound.
Immovably settled in meditation.
Dharma Body seen. Astounding!
Nothing to meditate.
Made a habit.
Become real.
Meditation and postmeditation the same. Astounding!
Beggar-monk Zhang.
Directions: skilled.
Distracting doubts: cut off.
Words: abundant harvest. Astounding!
Besides autobiographies, other genres that Zhang Rinpoche initiated, at least in an incipient form, are the genres of Gsan-yig, 'Records of Things Learned', and the Bca'-yig, 'Monastic Constitutions'. After his death, some of his disciples compiled the first Bka'-rgya-ma collection of 'Sealed Writings' based on a set of eight visionary autobiographies. Later Tibetan writers such as the Fifth Dalai Lama followed Zhang in producing 'sealed' works in a body of texts kept apart from their Collected Works. Zhang's 'Sealed Writings' show him to be the center of a ritualized Guruyoga cult, making him probably the first Tibetan teacher to be so honored.
If we leave for a moment the realm of literature for that of politics, Zhang Rinpoche would, just a few years after his composition of the Path, become the first to form a non-royal, religious sectarian polity in central Tibet, thus arguably setting the precedent for later Sakya, Kagyupa and Gelugpa sectarian rule, although this has not been sufficiently recognized in the existing political histories. He was probably also the first to institute the office of Sgom-chen (a title with the apparently incongruous literal meaning 'great meditator', who would, in the Sa-skya sect, be called Dpon-chen, 'great chief') to whom were delegated the secular and military affairs of the sect. We can show that the essential political setup behind what was in his time called the 'Patron-Priest relationship' and also what would later (probably in the fifteenth century) be called the Pairing of Religious and Secular Rule, was already in place in Zhang's pre-Mongol times. Zhang Rinpoche did come in for considerable criticism, though, for directly involving himself in policing actions against areas that did not agree to his rule. The volume of his 'Selected Works' contains the only copy of a set of extremely vituperative verses (entitled Phyag-khri-mchog-ma) aimed his way by one Phyag-khri-mchog. One can perceive Zhang's unquenchably individualistic character even through the obvious rancor. Phyag-khri-mchog says,
To mislead the faithful you have your own interpretive devices,
resorting to the scriptures with scant knowledge of the words,
but then pretentious about the meanings, contemptuous of the methods.
Shame on you, you fine-speaking scholar,
because the words have nothing to do with your meanings…
Beggar-monk Zhang, what haven't you done?
When you first started meditating you practiced renunciation,
but in your old age you had to give that up to make a living
and openly sought to create wealth, estates, and so on.
…
By buying and selling, field work and agriculture, battles and
various other means you seek a shelter for your old age.
You are certainly deeply misguided
and these battles on the empty fields and meadows
have brought all sorts of grief to countless living things:
to worms, lizards, mice, ants and so forth.
For a religious person, doing such sinful deeds, shame on you.
Scripture, reason and precepts of the Lama all
say to give up worldly business.
You conduct business even more than a householder.
You need everything and use everything;
all kinds of things you need.
Contemplative with so many needs and necessities, shame on you.
The biography of your sinful deeds is impossible to encompass.
You sit on your triple-stacked cushions wearing all the finest clothes.
Astride your fine horse, you are like a goat reaching out to snatch his food.
To crowds of people you tell all manner of nice stories.
While speaking seeming truths you commit all kinds of sins.
What person is there who has not been deceived by you?
Contemplative who moves his battlefield with him,
plundering all he needs –– horses, armor, scriptures, and so on.
You gather men, weapons and armor for your army.
Constantly, day and night, you engage in the preparations for war.
Besides you what contemplative plays the battle-lord?
Zhang Rinpoche's humorously self-defacing reply has also been preserved in a work called Astonished Verses of Praise to Myself (and also, Re-po-skyid-ma) in which he plays loosely with the conventions of the Buddhist stotra genre. I have translated the term rdol chos, or 'outbreak Dharma', as "pop religion", this being the oldest datable use of this term to my knowledge. It would be widely used in the early thirteenth century to refer to religious teachings without any past lineage or background that simply 'pop up', and more specifically to certain popular religious movements of the eleventh through twelfth centuries that were rejected by the official establishments of their day, and have since been neglected in histories by both Tibetans and non-Tibetans. Bear in mind that Zhang Rinpoche is addressing the following words to himself.
Sometimes you sing, sometimes you dance, and sometimes you moan.
You joke, get angry, laugh, and cry.
You do all kinds of things, without restraint.
Passionate madman, to you I will not prostrate.
The way you arrange the robes around you without fastening them,
such bad and shameless actions you do.
All kinds of things come out of your mouth,
spouting nothing but pop religion.
Shifty eyes, to you I will not prostrate.
I will not leave you to pull the Buddha's teachings down.
Where is it taught that monks should dance and sing?
Whose tradition is it to open ones mouth with nothing to say?
Whose tradition is it to act without reserve on ones desires?
Is that the religious tradition of renunciates?
Surely none of the scriptures, treatises and precepts,
none of the utterances of holy lamas
have taught to do what you have done.
Who gave you the teachings of the Buddha so you could pull them down?
Who entrusted you with perverting the faith of other people?
Who gave you the right to place your followers in sin?
Who entrusted your wicked self with governing others?
To you who have done so much that was not entrusted to you —
my mind is always sick of you — I will not prostrate.
To you who have pulled the teachings down
I will not prostrate.
Misguided guru, to you I will not prostrate.
Course acting monk, to you I will not prostrate.
Poisonous tree, to you I will not prostrate.
Pure without, dirty within, to you I will not prostrate.
Disgrace to religious people, to you I will not prostrate.
In all future rebirths may I never meet with you.
By censuring just a few drops of water
from the oceanic flood of your faults,
may your example not be followed by other beings
and may I, after leaving you, be with you never more.
Both Phyag-khri-mchog's verses and Zhang's 'autobiographical' response cast Zhang's eccentricities and other personal excesses in a highly negative light. But then, given the circumstances, it is clear that Zhang was able to give as good as he got. He is able to turn an attack on his character into what amounts to a very Buddhist attack on the self itself. And he is able to accomplish this in a very outspoken, individual, and creative manner.
Given our time limitations, I would have liked to include here a discussion, with some illustrative quotations, that would address "our" problems with Zhang's meditation advocacy. Shouldn't a life devoted to meditation remain quietistic and passive, and don't meditators have to resign themselves to the status of perpetually uninvolved victims of their social context?
A categorization of Zhang as meditation advocate must be cognizant of the fact that, even in his characterizations of the different phases of meditation, he places equal emphasis on the quality of post-meditational experience of the world. And this balance is explicitly paralleled (toward the end of his chapter "On Action") by his use of the paired concepts 'socializing and seclusion', 'social and individual' 'public and private'. Finally, Zhang says, for the person who has reached the ultimate realization of Mahāmudrā, the difference between meditative equipoise and post-meditation, as well as the difference between the social and individual, make no difference.
Herein lies the intriguing character of Zhang. He invokes the individualistic concept of 'own head' in the context of the ultimate yogic experience of reality where individualism, by his own account, would dissolve. He writes autobiographies, and in them he writes critical accounts of himself. He writes devastatingly satirical verses about himself, verses that nonetheless affirm his Buddhist outlook based on non-self. It isn't just that 'individuality', in so far as it is not just a cultural ideal and corresponds to something in actual experience, may be little more than the struggle of our context against our recalcitrant wills; it's the degree of Zhang's recalcitrance, even to the point of battling those who opposed his will, that is remarkable.
In short, it would be to slight his spirit and creativity to translate Zhang's poetry in the monotonous drones of what is now often called 'Buddhist Hybrid English.' It would equally be a slighting of his work to dub it a 'text' in a post-modernist sense that would preclude the possibility of any genuine or direct heartfelt expression. Expressing afresh a living experience, even of the most mundane everyday sort, is so difficult that we often stumble over the words, blurting out things that, given our understanding of our context, might be an embarrassment. But if we deny a hearty individual like Zhang the real possibility for individual expression, we'll have to deny it to ourselves.
References:
Astonished Verses of Praise to Myself (=Re-po-skyid-ma): See Zhang, Works, pp. 666-673.
'Chad-kha-ba, Seven-point Mind Training: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, tr., Universal Compassion: A Commentary to Bodhisattva Chekhawa's Training the Mind in Seven Points, Tharpa Publications (London 1988). Approximately eight other English translations of this same work of 'Chad-kha-ba are now available in print.
Ellingson, Ter, "Tibetan Monastic Constitutions: The Bca'-yig," L. Epstein & R. Sherburne, eds., Reflections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory of T.V. Wylie, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston 1990), pp. 205-229.
Gyatso, Janet B., "Autobiography in Tibetan Religious Literature: Reflections on its Modes of Self-presentation," Shôren Ihara & Zuihô Yamaguchi, eds., Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Narita 1989, Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1992), vol. 2, pp. 465-478.
Jackson, David, "Sa-skya Pandita the 'Polemicist': Ancient Debates and Modern Interpretations," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies vol. 13 no. 2 (1990) pp. 17-116. Note especially footnote nos. 86 (on signs of friction between meditation-based and learning-based Buddhists in the 12th century) and 103 (on Zhang Rinpoche).
Jackson, David, "The Self-sufficient White Remedy (dkar po chig thub) and Its Critics: A Tibetan Buddhist Controversy," not yet published manuscript in 209 pages, courtesy of the author.
'Jig-rten-mgon-po, Works: 'Bri-gung Chos-rje 'Jig-rten-mgon-po Rin-chen-dpal, The Collected Writings (Gsung-'bum) of 'Bri-gung Chos-rje 'Jig-rten-mgon-po Rin-chen-dpal, Khangsar Tulku (New Delhi 1969), in five volumes.
Martin, Dan, "A Twelfth-century Tibetan Classic of Mahāmudrā, The Path of Ultimate Profundity: The Great Seal Instructions of Zhang," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 15, no. 2 (1992), pp. 243-319.
Path of Ultimate Profundity (for English translation, see under Martin; following are the textual resources used for the unpublished text-edition):
Primary text: Zhang G.yu-brag-pa Brtson-'grus-grags-pa, Phyag-rgya-chen-po Lam Zab Mthar-thug Zhang-gi Man-ngag, contained in Rtsib-ri Spar-ma, vol. 4, pp. 49-117 (i.e., 35 folio pages).
Text G: same work, but with variant title, Skye-med Zhang Rin-po-ches Mdzad-pa'i Phyag-rgya-chen-po'i Lam Mchog Mthar-thug, contained in: Gdams-ngag Mdzod: A Treasury of Instructions and Techniques for Spiritual Realization, "compiled by 'Jam-mgon Kong-sprul Blo-gros-mtha'-yas, reproduced from a xylographic print from the Dpal-spungs blocks," N. Lungtok & N. Gyaltsan (Delhi 1971) vol. 5, pp. 744-777 (i.e., 17 folio pages).
Text H: same title as Text G, contained in: Gdams-ngag Mdzod: A Treasury of Precious Methods and Instructions of the Major and Minor Buddhist Traditions of Tibet, "brought together and structured into a coherent system by 'Jam-mgon Kong-sprul, edited from a set of the Dpal-spungs prints and published at the order of H.H. Dingo Chhentse Rimpoche," Lama Ngodrup & Sherab Drimey (Paro 1979) vol. 8, pp. 429-462 (i.e., 17 folio pages).
Text N: Nepalese National Archives. Reel no. E1818/4 ('running number' E34769): Phyag-rgya-chen-po Lam Zab Mthar-thug Zhang-gi Man-ngag. 35 folio xylograph. Filmed 12/5/85. Edges damaged slightly by fire. 8.5 X 40 cm. Microfilm based on blockprint in possession of Am-chi Rdo-rje-grags-pa, Bodhanath, Nepal. Printed from same woodblocks as our primary text, but with 33 variant readings, nevertheless.
Phyag-khri-mchog-ma: See Zhang, Works, pp. 661-665. Be aware that the actual title occurs, by mistake, on p. 659.
Responses to Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa (Dus-mkhyen Zhus-lan), contained in: Rtsib-ri Par-ma, vol. 5, pp. 71-241. Also contained in various editions of the selected works of Sgam-po-pa.
Responses to Phag-mo-gru-pa (Phag-gru Zhus-lan), contained in: Rtsib-ri Par-ma, vol. 5, pp. 19-69. Also contained in various editions of the selected works of Sgam-po-pa.
Rgyal-blon-ma: See Zhang, Works, pp. 213-301.
Rtsib-ri Par-ma: La-dwags Khri-dpon Padma-chos-rgyal, ed., Dkar Rnying-gi Skyes-chen Du-ma'i Phyag Rdzogs-kyi Gdams-ngag Gnad Bsdus Nyer-mkho Rin-po-che'i Gter Mdzod Rtsibs-ri'i Par-ma, Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso Khang (Darjeeling 1978+), in thirty volumes.
Sher-grub-ma: See Zhang, Works, pp. 9-58.
Zhang, Bka'-rgya-ma: Zhang G.yu-brag-pa Brtson-'grus-grags-pa, The Highly Esoteric Experiential Writings (Bka' rgya ma) of Bla-ma Zhang G'yu-brag-pa Brtson-'grus-g.yung-drung, "reproduced from incomplete manuscript collections preserved at the Monastery of O-rgyan-chos-gling in Bhutan," Drug Sherig Press (Thimphu 1981), in two volumes.
Zhang, Works: Zhang G.yu-brag-pa Brtson-'grus-grags-pa, Writings (Bka' 'Thor-bu), Sungrab Nyamso Gyunpel Parkhang (Palampur 1972). Note that this one-volume 'selected works' is the only large body of Zhang's works available to me at present, although the complete six-volume set (along with a few partial sets), recently located in Nepal, is on microfilm at the Nepalese National Archives, Kathmandu.