Serlingpa biography sample

Atisha & Dharmakirtisri (Serlingpa)

source : www.tibet.cn
original title : In honor of Atisha, once and now

It is a question only few people pose: how would Tibet look like today without Atisha?
Most likely Buddhism would have vanished from the hearts of the Tibetan people, monks would not have known what and how to teach, monasteries would have lost their purpose. There would have been no teaching of the Lam Rim, as the gradual path to enlightenment is called, there would be no understanding of Bodhichitta ( enlightened mind) as the gate to the truth, no preservation of so many holy scripts, which were lost in India, but saved in Tibet and later spread around the globe. Tsongkapa would have had no basis for his great reforms and the founding of the Gelug sect with a Dalai Lama as its head. There would be no driving force, who over the last decades has brought Atisha’s message to the rest of the world.

From India Atisha had come to Tibet. One thousand years later, Atisha comes from Tibet to the world. Atisha meditation centers, many led by Tibetan monks are opening up all over the West and East and in memory of him, some groups even use the name of Serlingpa, whom Atisha called one of his greatest teachers.

Who was Atisha ? Who was Serlingpa ? Both were born towards the end of 10th century.
Serlingpa was an offspring of the Srivijaya Dynasty, which had its roots in the Island of Java, but moved its seat to the Island of Sumatra and influenced for centuries the culture and religion of large parts of Southeastasia. Serlingpa’s Sanskrit name was Dharmakirtisri.

In his time, Serlingpa seems to have been the most revered scholar in the Buddhist world. Even Chinese and Indians respected his monastery near the city of Palembang as the leading center of Buddhist learing.

One of the reasons for Serlingpa’s outstanding reputation was his clear and comprehensive knowledge of Buddha’s teachings, especially of t

-Dominic Kuan Hwee Chua, MA student from Singapore

As a student of Tibetan Buddhism at RYI, I’ve often found myself drawn to the figures of Atiśa and Dharmakīrti Serlingpa, two Buddhist masters whose stories span centuries and vast regions of Asia. These figures have come to symbolise for me the deep interconnectedness of the Buddhist world, one that cuts across geographic and cultural boundaries. 

Atiśa, an 11th-century Bengali scholar-monk, is well-known for helping to establish Buddhism in Tibet during its ‘second transmission’. However, before his Tibetan journey, he spent 12 years studying under Dharmakīrti Serlingpa, a renowned teacher based in what was then the flourishing Śrīvijaya Empire. Atiśa regarded Dharmakīrti Serlingpa as his root guru, and it was from him that Atiśa learnt the practice of mind training (lojong). This lineage of lojong, which focuses on taming the mind through the use of ‘slogans’, and transforming adversity into spiritual growth, would become a cornerstone of Tibetan Buddhism under Atiśa’s transmission. 

Dharmakīrti Serlingpa, Atiśa’s root guru. 

Learning about Atiśa’s Śrīvijayan connection felt like part of a missing puzzle piece. It helped me to understand how Vajrayāna traditions extant today in the Himalayas are connected with those in Japan – with Malaya having being the ‘bridge’ region through which these ideas flowed, travelling with the monsoon winds on merchant ships. It helped me see how Southeast Asia was joined not just to its own rich Buddhist past, but to the very teachings that have shaped Tibetan Buddhism, which I now study. 

Map by Andrea Acri and Swati Chemburkar, showing the paths travelled by the monks (7th–9th century) between India, mainland and insular Southeast Asia, China, Japan and Korea. From Esoteric Buddhism in Mediaeval Maritime Asia. 

Modern scholars suggest th

“In any case, the only lama whom Tibetans call Jowo Je is Atisha, there is no-one else. This shows how close Tibetans felt to Jowo Je, and how much gratitude they have for his kindness. Tibetans have a different feeling for Jowo Je than any other lama from the very depths of their hearts. So, they use this word of high praise and respect.”

“One particular feature of Atisha, is that he combined the Middle Way view and the vast practice of the Mind-Only and practised them in union. This is a special feature of Atisha, and for that reason, even in Tibetan Buddhism, he was very influential.”

“When Atisha went to Tibet, they asked him: “You have had a lot of gurus so why do you pay such respect to Serlingpa?” Atisha replied: ” I followed many gurus, I cannot say who is better or worse, or higher or lower, there is no difference, all of them had high and excellent qualities. My reason for having such devotion to Serlingpa is not because of any difference in qualities , I have faith in all of them, but Serlingpa was the kindest one of all.”

–17th Karmapa

INTRODUCTION

Today, am happy to offer an introduction and transcript of the second day of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa’s remarkable and original teaching on the Life and Liberation of Atisha (see video here). In this teaching, the Karmapa considered the following topics: 

• Reasons/signs why the young tantric yogi Atisha took monastic ordination and from whom
• How Atisha got his names and their meaning,
• Combining monastic life with tantric practice
• Atisha’s three main gurus and the reasons for his most beloved one, Serlingpa (Suvarṇadvīpa) whom he met in Sumatra, Indonesia.
• the historical background in Tibet before Atisha was invited there.

How Atisha was invited and brought to Tibet is a topic the Karmapa discusses in more detail on the following Day 3 (more on that in the next post).

It was fascinating to learn about A