Position summary
The Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (མི་བསྐྱོད་རྡོ་རྗེ་) is the most prolific author among the Karmapas and the principal architect of the Karma Kagyü Madhyamaka. His Chariot of the Takpo Kagyü Siddhas (c. 1545), a commentary on Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra, is considered to contain his definitive positions on the Middle Way, composed in the latter part of his life. It is preserved in abridged form by the Ninth Karmapa in karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578.
The Eighth Karmapa’s positions are known primarily through the Ninth Karmapa’s abridgement. The most refuted master in the Chariot is Tsongkhapa; the Karmapa also critiques Dolpopa, Bodong Chokle Namgyal, Shākya Chokden, and Gorampa. A distinctive feature is the integration of Mahāmudrā pointing-out instructions with philosophical analysis.
Hermeneutical approach
Fully within the Mahāyāna hermeneutical framework. The Eighth Karmapa draws authority from the early Tibetan Consequentialists (Atisha, Patsap Lotsawa, Rendawa, Lochen Kyapchok Palzang) and positions himself as continuing their lineage against what he sees as innovations by Tsongkhapa’s tradition.
Key claims
On MA 1.8 (arhats and phenomenal selflessness), from tenpa-tibetan-battleground-notes:
- Arhats realize phenomenal selflessness, defended via “three reasonings and seven scriptural quotations”
- Central reasoning: if arhats viewed their aggregates, constituents, and sources as real, it would be impossible for them not to view the self as being real either as the possessor of those elements or as the whole of which they are parts
- Cites Āryadeva, Catuḥśataka: “Whatever is the viewer of one, that is the viewer of all. Whatever is the emptiness of one, that is the emptiness of all.”
- Crucial qualification distinguishing the Kagyü position from Tsongkhapa’s: arhats’ realization of phenomenal selflessness is complete in kind but limited in scope — it is applied only to the phenomena of their own continua and to “the uncontaminated truth of the path.” Bodhisattvas apply the same realization to a vastly wider range of phenomena
- The “outshining” from the seventh bhūmi is accounted for by this scope-difference, not by difference in the content of realization itself
On MA 3.11 (exhaustion of defilements), from tenpa-tibetan-battleground-notes:
- Brief treatment: through realizing “unmoving interdependence and the nondisintegration [of interdependence],” third-bhūmi bodhisattvas completely exhaust attachment, aggression, and bewilderment as “qualities of relinquishment”
Related scholars
- Ninth Karmapa: Abridged the Eighth Karmapa’s commentary into Feast for the Fortunate
- Tsongkhapa: Most refuted opponent
- Pawo Tsuklak Trengwa (1504–1566): “Moonlike” disciple; his Śāntideva commentary and the Chariot are the two main Kagyü Madhyamaka texts